AND GOD CREATED WOMAN

"That woman was made to destroy men."

Tame by today's standards, Roger Vadim's 1956 erotic drama AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, caused quite a stir when it was first released. Especially in the United States where the controversial French film suffered heavy handed editing. There's no on screen nudity or intercourse (after all, this was 1956 )but the film is nonetheless packed with eroticism.

And that eroticism is contained mostly within the body of one Brigitte Bardot. Bare-footed, horny and smouldering with raw sex appeal, Bardot burns her way through every frame of this film (even the ones she doesn't appear in). Bardot had made other films prior to AND GOD but this was the film that put her on the map as an international sex symbol.

Bardot stars as Juliette, an 18 year-old orphan girl who longs for love but will settle for sex with a variety of suitors young and old. She's romanced by wealthy, older businessman Eric Carradine (Curt Jurgens). Carradine has plans to build a hotel and casino in a seaside French village but to do so, he must acquire a piece of property, a small shipyard, owned by three brothers and their widowed mother. The oldest son, Antoine (Christian Marquand), is attracted to Juliette but only for sex while his younger brother (and middle son) Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant), genuinely loves the confused girl and proposes marriage to her.

Juliette accepts his proposal and they marry but Juliette cannot change her ways and eventually has a one night stand with Antoine (who is now her brother-in-law).

Things come to a head in a tense sequence in a night club in which it looks like murder might be the solution to all of the narrative problems but death is averted and Michel and Juliette are together at the end of the film.

Beautifully shot by Armand Thirard, AND GOD CREATED WOMAN looks stunning in a new transfer for the Criterion Collection. The film is bursting with color, interesting characters and a complex moral dilemma. Director/writer Vadim and co-screen writer Raoul Levy, paint a vivid picture of a confused young woman who yearns for a simple, happy life but finds her dreams constantly thwarted.

AND GOD CREATED WOMAN stands as a compelling drama, made in a straight-forward, pre-New Wave style and the films' reputation as a sexed-up potboiler is unfair. There's a good movie to be enjoyed here along with Bardot's rise to super stardom.

Recommended.