Barbarella

In the year 40,000, a stunningly attractive adventurer named Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is assigned by the President of the Republic of Earth (Claude Dauphin) to track down an evil scientist. This scientist has invented a weapon in an era of pacifism in this intergalactic society, and has disappeared into an area dubbed Tau Seti. Barbarella will have many interesting experiences, and encounter a rich variety of characters, such as winged man Pygar (John Phillip Law), a nasty but sultry villainess (Anita Pallenberg), and a sadistic Concierge (Milo O'Shea).

The opening striptease by Jane (with the opening credits moved around to help obscure her nudity) may play a pivotal part in why this is so beloved as a cult classic 50 years later. But in truth, this off the wall science fiction tale is plenty goofy, enough so that the movie does have a real sense of fun going for it. It amps up its sex appeal and its psychedelic qualities to the nth degree, and its production design (by Mario Garbuglia) and cinematography (by Claude Renoir) are first-rate. Along with amusing special effects, this results in a non-stop assortment of futuristic and exotic eye candy. Based on a best-seller by Jean-Claude Forest, the script (bearing contributions by EIGHT credited individuals) contains some endearingly literate but silly dialogue.

Jane is appealing, playing a character who is not all that heroic; she needs saving more than once, and often must rely on the help of others. Her wide-eyed innocence (and that of the likeable hunk Law) is contrasted by the lascivious qualities of the production and the delicious villainy of the characters played by Pallenberg and O'Shea. (Trivia note: a certain 80s rock band took its name from the name of O'Sheas' character.) Memorable contributions are also made by Marcel Marceau, David Hemmings (very funny as a comedy-relief revolutionary), and Ugo Tognazzi.

Complete with a catchy, groovy score and songs (by Charles Fox and Bob Crewe), and Roger Vadim (Janes' husband at the time) directs with great style.

Overall, quite engaging, although clearly not something to be taken seriously.

Seven out of 10.

Just what were they on? "Barbarella" is one of those sixties films (the Beatles vehicle "Help!" is another) which, although it makes no explicit references to the decade's drug culture, nevertheless leaves the indelible impression that the director, the scriptwriter, the set designer, the costume designer, the cameramen and most of the cast were under the influence of mind-expanding drugs throughout the entire shooting period.

I first saw the film at university in the early eighties when a student film society organised a screening. Interest in it at that time may have been aroused by the release in 1980 of "Flash Gordon", another ultra-camp science fiction film which was undoubtedly influenced by it, and by the fact that one of the leading British pop groups of the era had called themselves Duran Duran in homage to their origins in a now-defunct Birmingham nightclub called Barbarella's.

The film is based on a French series of comic books, which I must admit I have never read. (Unlike, say, the "Asterix" or "Tintin" series, the Barbarella comics have never had much of a following in Britain). The action takes place in the 40th century. Barbarella, a beautiful young female astronaut, is ordered by the President of Earth to travel to the planet Tau Ceti to find a scientist named Durand Durand, from whom the band took their misspelled name. Durand is the inventor of a weapon known as the Positronic Ray, which the President fears may fall into the wrong hands.

The rest of the film is taken up with Barbarella's increasingly bizarre adventures on Tau Ceti. She goes ice-skiing across the planet's frozen surface, pulled along by an octopus-like creature, is menaced by flesh-eating dolls with razor-sharp teeth, seduces a blind angel (or "ornithanthrope"), meets the predatory lesbian Queen of a decadent city and survives an attempted execution by means of an "orgasmatron", a machine designed to kill by an excess of sexual pleasure. (Barbarella's capacity for sexual pleasure is so great that she blows its circuits). We are not, of course, meant to take any of this seriously; the whole thing is intended as a sort of tongue-in-cheek exercise in high camp surrealism, Salvador Dali meets Edna Everage. The surreal nature of the film is emphasised by the use of psychedelic lighting effects. (The opening song even includes the rhyme "Barbarella Psychedella").

Barbarella is played by Jane Fonda, who at the time was married to the director Roger Vadim, clearly a man with the knack of attracting beautiful women. (He had previously been married to Brigitte Bardot and had been the lover of Catherine Deneuve). I wonder if, when Fonda was taking her wedding vows, she realised that Vadim's interpretation of "for better or for worse" included casting his wife in eccentric films like this one. Her devotion to her wifely duties seems to have been at the expense of her career; she later revealed that her commitment to "Barbarella" meant having to turn down the leading roles in two more serious films, "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Rosemary's Baby". Moreover, many of the heroine's adventures seem to have been designed with the express purpose of showing off Fonda's figure in a series of provocative outfits, leaving her with a lasting "sex kitten" image. This was something she was never comfortable with, especially when she was trying to reinvent herself as a feminist and left-wing activist a few years later.

This is far from being Fonda's best film, yet she is about the only cast member who emerges with any credit from it, playing the heroine as a sort of wide-eyed innocent abroad. John Phillip Law, who plays the ornithanthrope Pygar, is so wooden that I wondered if he was under instructions to play his role with a deliberately deadpan lack of emotion. David Hemmings as the resistance leader Dildano shows us just why his career never really took off in the way it was expected to after his early breakthrough in "Blowup". (Hemmings's costume, looking like a pair of leather Y-fronts, is just as bizarre as anything worn by Fonda). Marcel Marceau shows that his talents as a mime did not extend to acting in spoken roles. Anita Pallenberg, better known for her relationships with several members of the Rolling Stones, was cast as the wicked Queen, but Vadim did not trust her to speak her own lines; the Queen speaks with the unmistakable contralto tones of Joan Greenwood.

"Barbarella" was a failure on its release, both at the box office and with the critics, yet despite the dodgy acting and the nonsensical plot it has since 1968 acquired the status of a cult movie. (Even back in my student days it was regarded as sort of historic artifact). Cults, whether religious or cinematic, can be baffling to everyone except ardent devotees, yet I must confess that I have a soft spot for this surreal relic of the hippie era. It is an ideal film to watch when returning from the pub late at night. Particularly if one is drunk. 6/10

Take a kaleidoscope to your eye, let it dwell, at the night sky, after a while you just might see, colours conjured, so wild and free, imagination is the game, often wildly insane, a pinch of salt may be required, but this is elegance inspired.

It's as daft as it's delirious, and to some mildly nefarious, but Jane Fonda is a star, and this is an early car, that delivers all her talents, all the things that make her balance, with many tongues in many cheeks, it's most always, worth a peek.

A wonderfully wild ride through a universe long since forgotten, and seldom revisited, that indelibly reminds us of a a time when boundaries needed breaking, and often were.

Really and truly, this could be the plot of one of the more "high-brow" types of porn. I watched this with a bunch of other girls for a class, and we could not stop laughing the entire time.

See Jane Fonda meet men from around the galaxy, and have sex with them! Dare your friends to count how many times she changes her costume!! Sparks deep philosophical discussion, like what exactly the writers were on when they wrote this. Great fun, not to be missed!

Comic Strip brought appropriately to life . Tremendous fun, amusing scenes , psychedelic frames and many other things . In the far future, the year is 40,000. The protagonist is a highly sexual woman named Barbarella (Jane Fonda , Sophia Loren turned down the title role) is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand (character famously inspired the band name of 1980s pop stars Duran Duran), a missing scientist (Milo O'Shea). Along the quite sexy way she encounters various unusual people . As Barbarella (whose costume was inspired by designer Paco Rabanne) travels to the evil city called SoGo, it is a reference to Biblical cities Sodom and Gomorrah. On her dangerous trip she teams with blind angel Pygar (John Philip Law), and fights the Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg) along with numerous sexual torture devices , but she has to save the world .

Naif Sci-Fi plenty of colors , thrills , brilliant cinematography by Claude Renoir and fantastic images ; surprisingly, for such a diverse melange, it actually works. Knowingly Camp version of comic-book sci-Fi classic written by Jean Claude Forest . In the original comic, Barbarella was not a secret agent but an outlaw, and the movie omits some of the adventures she had on Lythion, including an encounter with an earlier villainess called the Gorgon, whose face changed into a duplicate of the face of anyone who looked at her. Unlike the other space movies of the time, this film emphasized sets and costumes rather than visual effects, and as a result its overall look dates less than many space operas of the late seventies/early eighties .Jane Fonda is simply unbelievable as gorgeous heroine , she plays a feisty Barbarella , a futuristic girl from Earth . The scenes during the opening credits where Barbarella seems to float around her spaceship were filmed by having Jane Fonda lie on a huge piece of plexiglas with a picture of the spaceship underneath her. It was then filmed from above, creating the illusion that she is in zero gravity. Performance-wise, everyone seems to be camping it up like an end-of-term pantomime, though Milo O'Shea somehow seems to give his villain a deliciously style . Barbarella was the first science fiction hero from the comics to be adapted into a feature film as opposed to a serial , Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, her male predecessors, had only appeared in serials up to this point. A bit later on , there was realized by Mike Hodges ¨Flash Gordon¨ (1980) in similar aesthetic and a TV series titled ¨Buck Rogers¨ . Jolly and catching musical score , including commercial songs , by Charles Fox, who co-wrote the songs for this film, also wrote the theme song for another Sci/Fi flick of 1968, The Green Slime, and future Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour was one of the session musicians who performed the film's original score. The motion picture was originally directed by Roger Vadim who married Brigitte Bardot , in fact , the original author Jean-Claude Forest based the character of Barbarella on Brigitte Bardot - who ironically was director Roger Vadim's previous wife ; Vadim subsequently married Jane Fonda . However this film is listed among The 100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made in Golden Raspberry Award .