Word: vadim
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...spark came in 1956 when Roger Vadim, then a lowly assistant director, somehow wrangled his producer into backing a low-budget effort entitled And God Created Women starting Vadim's own wife, who happened to be Brigitte Bardot. The film's success encouraged normally conservative French producers to exploit the appeal of both unknown stars and directors, and France at that time harbored a huge backlog of just such talent...
Married. Jane Fonda, 27, Henry's leggy daughter (Cat Ballon); and Roger Vadim, 37, French director (Circle of Love), Svengali to three cinematic bombes (Brigitte Bardot and Annette Stroyberg, both of whom he married, and Catherine Deneuve); he for the third time; at the Dunes Hotel in Las Vegas...
...Director Vadim has not reinterpreted La Ronde; he has simply thrown himself upon it like a pimpled schoolboy tussling for kisses in the cloakroom. Famed for his ability to guide young actresses from obscurity to nudity, Vadim usually displays them backside up amidst a pile of sheets. In Circle, with five lissome beauties at his disposal (Fonda, Catherine Spaak, Anna Karina, Francine Bergé, Marie Dubois), he simply varies the routine with a good deal of explicit groping, button tugging and lifting of skirts...
...When Vadim tires of treating sex as a naughty joke, he pads episodes with excursions into screwball farce. Playwright Jean Anouilh's scenario seldom seems funny, perhaps because the laughs are lost in the dubbed English version. Frequent close-ups make accurate lip synchronization impossible, and the flat, disembodied voices set up a sound barrier. It is a bit like watching dancers whirl through a Viennese waltz while the band plays Yankee Doodle...
...worth seeing if only for its breathtaking color decor. The camera wizardry of Henri Decae produces acres of gauzy portraiture, plus one exquisite vignette in the style of Lautrec, and nearly always the film glows in a red, green and golden wash of art-nouveau elegance. Against such sumptuousness, Vadim's elementary lechery seems to be the only thing out of place...