Viva Maria!

I remember staying up late one night and watching this movie when I was about 13. Here was two stunning women that demanded attention. The movie was all about entertainment. Saw it 20 years later and still enjoyed it. This is a pleasant change from the regular diet of 100 lb anorexic female leads we get to 'drool' over.

This vastly enjoyable romp features Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau at their loveliest as two saloon entertainers who (inadvertently) not only find themselves in the middle of the Mexican Revolution, but also invent striptease in the process! VIVA MARIA! sees Louis Malle return to the "anything goes" territory of his earlier success, ZAZIE DANS LE METRO (1960); here he is aided immeasurably by an engaging cast (which also includes Luis Bunuel regular, Claudio Brook and an understandably daunted George Hamilton!) and an impeccable crew (co-screenwriter Jean-Claude Carriere, cinematographer Henri Decae, composer Georges Delerue, assistant directors Juan Bunuel and Volker Schlondorff)! While the film is uneven in spots, the last half hour is a succession of hilarious sight gags which border at times, perhaps unsurprisingly given its credentials, on the surreal and the anti-clerical.

This was an amusing film, which was the first movie that I saw starring either Bridget Bardot or Jeanne Moreau. I actually saw it on a double bill back in 1965. It is of interest because it brings up a matter that American films about Mexico's Revolution (or that of the other Latin American Countries) rarely touch upon. This is the position of the Roman Catholic Church in these matters.

The only time the issue of the Church and the Revolutionaries came up in American films was in the John Ford / Henry Fonda movie "The Fugitive". That (based on Graham Greene's novel "The Power And The Glory")dealt with the anti-Clericalism of the PRI regimes that ruled the country after 1920. In it Fonda is a fugitive priest who is trying to continue his religious role, despite the anti-clericalism of the regime. Greene (and Ford) were good Catholics, and stressed the negative actions of the revolutionary regime in Mexico (similar to the anti-religious viewpoint of the Communist regime in Russia). But the view barely notes why the anti-Clericalism developed.

One of the largest land owning groups in Mexico (and in most of Latin America's countries) was the Church. And, due to the holdings, the Church tended to be rather conservative politically. In the 19th Century the greatest figure of reform in Mexico was Benito Juarez, who was from a poor native Indian background. But most of his career was in trying to strengthen Mexican democratic government, and to drive the French invasion (that briefly set up Archduke Maximillian of Austria) as Emperor. But after the French were driven out, Juarez spent the remainder of his years in office (1867 - 1872) trying to get through some kind of fair land reform. This did not sit well with the Church. It supported the regime of his successor (Porfirio Diaz), who was opposed to land reform - he invited foreign investors (many Americans) into Mexico. Diaz's policies were good in giving Mexico a stable economy and political peace for three decades (the longest growth period until the later 20th Century).

The key character to watch in "Viva Maria" is Francisco Regueira, who plays the sinister Father Superior. It is he who is constantly in communication with the dictator, the landowner, and their minions. The role (as is the film) is played for laughs, but it is his behavior, conspiring against the two Marias and their friends, which is telling.

The plot is interesting in bringing in the universality of revolution. Bardot is shown growing up, the daughter of an Irish revolutionary, constantly destroying British forts and other sites with his daughter assisting. When she joins forces with Moreau the latter's sister has committed suicide, so that she needs Bardot to replace the sister. It is a circus group, but Bardot and Moreau do a singing and strip-tease act. They are brought into the Mexican Revolution by the brutality of the local landowner (who rules like he has a mini-kingdom).

The film was pure escapism: the circus group's resident marksman finds one of his special rifles is badly bent after an explosion - he doesn't throw it out, but attach-es a mirror to the barrel and uses the bent gun to shoot people around the corner. George Hamilton plays a local "Zapata" type hero, who is wounded and in hiding. When Bardot speaks in his honor, the members of the circus group listen to her words comments critically on her use of language, and on his theatricality - as though she is acting on stage.

It is not a major film, even for director Louis Malle (don't compare it with "Atlantic City", for example). But as an enjoyable romp it's worth watching.

What was Louis Malle thinking about when he put forth this gem of a movie? It's a tale of comedic revolution in a fictitious country south of the border, and it happens to be led by a couple of gorgeous carnival entertainers, namely Bardot and Moreau. This French/Italian production is certainly off beat when the girls, leading their little band of performers have to finish a revolution begun by George Hamilton (listen to his voice in French!). A little anti-church, anti-establishment, a little strange, this film will delight the curious. And of course, Bardot is as cute as can be. Don't miss this one, for the delight of it all.

Louis Malle made a total of four films with Jeanne Moreau that couldn't be more different. He established critical acclaim for both of them with Lift to the Scaffold, then a ban for the amorous Les Amants. A dark meditation came five years later with The Fire Within, followed almost immediately by this highly commercial, enjoyable, lightweight romp.

Viva Maria! is a joyous celebration of female bonding across early twentieth century Mexico as the two Marias – played by Jeanne Moreau and Bridget Bardot – right wrongs, take their fill of life and love, lead a revolution, blow things up, invent striptease, and help men to shoot round corners.

We meet the first Maria while she is still a child. Before the opening credits have finished, she has gaily helped Dad blow up the English many times. Ireland 1891. London 1894. Gibraltar 1901. Finally in Central America she has to blow up Dad while the baddies are still shooting him on the bridge. Undeterred, she continues alone, now a young woman (in the form of tomboy Bridget Bardot), catching a train on the run as we catch the last of the opening titles. It was a hectic race. As she finally sits down on the tail of the train we enjoy her sigh of exertion and relief.

Before long, Bardot Maria has teamed up with travelling singer, Moreau Maria – who she holds at knifepoint before becoming bosom buddies. The next visual gasp comes as Bardot takes off her cap – a moment Malle milks for all it is worth. Somehow concealed under the boyish hat, long golden locks fall down. Bardot sheds her androgynous Calamity Jane look for full-on pout and the camera lingers knowingly. This pistol-totin' gal will bed whoever takes her fancy and chalk their names up on the inside wall of the wagon. It is the classic Bardot imagery – that inspired both 'bardolâtrie' and comments of noted feminist Simone de Beauvoir defending her as a manifestation of a new, artifice-free type of femininity, "as much a hunter as she is a prey."

During the tours of the musical theatre circus, the pair perform a number where an accidentally ripped dress leads them to accidentally invent striptease. Although they only bare down to their knickerbockers, the show is a smash hit, considerably raising the troupe's profile and income.

By this point, silly but hilariously executed gags have become well-entrenched. Men pay to see the show with chickens if they have no money. English colonials speak with frightfully proper accents and discuss tea. The two girls join the revolution after Bardot, who has a common sense objection to injustice, takes a pot shot at a local bad guy chief. (St Miguel is owned by four families – details are hazy – presumably the English stay in the background drinking tea and the Catholic Church stays with whoever's winning.) The Marias are being worshipped by the populace (due to another hilarious accident) and put to the Rack – the Catholic Inquisition having apparently stayed over a few centuries in Mexico rather than returning to Spain. The Mexican Inquisition is linked visually to that other popular pogrom, the Klu Klux Klan.

Viva Maria! almost sags in the middle from the weight of non-stop action. It is a great tribute to Malle's skill that everything has gone so perfectly when so much could easily have gone wrong. But just as it starts to get a bit samey, Moreau surprises everyone, audience and other characters alike, by a big soliloquy after the death of her hunky proletariat lover. "It's her big scene," comments one of the locals as Moreau descends the stairs with Shakespearean majesty. Perhaps it was this scene that clinched her Bafta in a close race with Bardot that year.

The last half proves a roller coaster of inventive explosions and gags that keep us endlessly on the edge of our seat. Viva Maria! is straight entertainment with no attempt to be deep and meaningful. Yet, unlike many lightweight mainstream films, its dominant ideologies are refreshingly subversive.