Cette sacrée gamine

'Cette sacree gamine' is French for 'this holy little girl'; or, to translate it better, 'this marvelous baby'.

You'll understand this points to 21-year old Brigitte Bardot. And, oh yes, in this film young Brigitte steals your heart away. The more so, while 'Cette sacree gamine' has several dancing scenes - you may know that BB was a fully educated ballet dancer.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said about this film's plot. Telling its story takes too much time, even to 1950-s standards. Its built-up, complete with dancing and slapstick, looks somewhat unbalanced. While watching you feel an urge to check your watch, wondering how long you'll have to sit this one out.

In Paris, when the owner of the nightclub Mississippi in Pigalle Paul Latour (Bernard Lancret) is wanted by the police accused of distribution of forged dollars in his club, he asks his protégée and lead attraction of Mississippi Jean Clery (Jean Bretonniére) to protect his beloved daughter Brigitte (Brigitte Bardot). Jean is engaged of the psychoanalyst Lily (Françoise Fabian) and brings the wild and rebel Brigitte from her conservative boarding school to his fancy apartment while Paul travels to Lausanne to meet a friend to clear his name. While waiting for the return of Paul, Brigitte turns Paul's life upside down and they fall in love for each other. But the Parisian police and the counterfeit ring are chasing Brigitte, but Jean, his butler Jerome (Raymond Bussiéres) and his friends protect the girl.

"Cette Sacrée Gamine" is a delightful and naive entertaining. The predictable story is silly, uses many gags, but is supported by the adorable twenty-two year old Brigitte Bardot. This movie works first because of the beauty and charm of BB and Raymond Bussiéres is responsible for the funniest moments. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Garota Levada" ("Naughty Girl")

The male lead ,Jean Bretonnière,was primarily a singer ,mainly known for his appearance in Julien Duvivier's "sous le ciel de Paris"(1950) in which he performed the eponymous song (but today ,Edith Piaf's version has outshadowed his).

The screenplay ,written by (Roger) Vadim is not much ,a trite tale of forged currency.

Today ,the movie is entirely BB's ;this actress was unique ,with her petit je ne sais quoi ,her spontaneity (she never seems to act) ,,her false naiveté ( she was far from being dumb, in her movies as well as in real life).She became France's greatest sex symbol,and for that matter,never dethroned ,even though it would take Vadim's (mediocre movie in itself) " Et Dieu créa La Femme" to create the myth (the same year) .BB blows everybody off the screen in this movie,including earnest actress Françoise Fabian who would become an appreciated thespian in the late sixties .

Even BB 's fondness for pets is here ,represented by a parrot, Jacquot.

This movie can be considered a musical ,for Jean Bretonnière performs songs ,and during his fiancée's stodgy lecture about psychoanalysis , begins to dream of ...BB in a ballet.

It had just begun.The entire French male population (and the others) had not heard the last of BB.

The French red-hair bombshell Brigitte Bardot looks like too young in this fine picture as a teenager daughter of owner of a night club Paul Latour (Bernard Lancret) involved in a counterfeit money, his main act singer Jean Clery (Jean Bretonnière) shall be in charge to take care of still naïve Brigitte Latour (BB) meanwhile his father finds a way to escape safe with her to Swiss, however the girl is so muddled than nosy, Jean enchants by the young Brigitte, even having a fancy fiancé Lili (Françoise Fabian), Jean tries hard to conceal the girl at your home of the police and his jealous fiancé as well, in this romantic comedy who really shine is the hilarious butler Jérôme (Raymond Bussières) with his weird posturing, followed by the zany three French Inspectors, also add some musical acts sang by Jean Clery totally miscasting for the role, is quite dated, kistch and off-color, conversely the dancing girls is truly great, plenty of gorgeous girls as often the French does, the plot is well-craft, recalling in some way American movies, Brigitte Bardot is another level of course!!!

Resume:

First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7

Bardot is gorgeous and so is the production, which aspires to a near-Hollywood gloss, but this is mainly tired, formula comedy smelling faintly of imitation Damon Runyon. Bretonniere is no Yves Montand, and BB's big dance number is a failed imitation of Leslie Caron's introduction in "An American in Paris". Fans of "Time Code" (or perhaps "Tucker") may enjoy some clever split-screen effects that appear to have been achieved with trick sets instead of multiple exposures. A potential guilty pleasure for those who crave 50s CinemaScope eye candy.