DVD REVIEW: THE BRIGITTE BARDOT COLLECTION

If I had to choose between Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot, I’d have to go with Brigitte.

I might say that Monroe had the better filmography (BB never made anything as good as SEVEN YEAR ITCH, and SOME LIKE IT HOT isn’t too shabby) but Bardot had plenty of good films over the years. It is just that they weren’t the films she was really known for.

I always forget she was in Godard’s CONTEMPT, as that was a director driven film that wasn’t really a BB vehicle (and neither was JLG’s MASCULINE / FEMININE in which she appeared briefly). And there was Louis Malle’s VIVA MARIA and the multi director SPIRITS OF THE DEAD, both very good films.

But, for the most part, Bardot’s films were not the greatest. Her best known, AND GOD CREATED WOMAN, was an entertaining film, but far from a great one.

Still, even in the lesser films she made, there was something about her that made them all watchable.

Several of those lesser films are now being released in a 5 film, 3 DVD set from Lion’s Gate. A few of the films were previously released in an Anchor Bay Bardot collection from a few years ago. I do not have that set on DVD to compare transfers (it came out in the early days of DVD, and I bought the VHS version (which was half the price) instead. Seeing what that early out of print DVD set is going for online, I made a bad choice).

The films in the set are:


THE NAUGHTY GIRL (1956) – An early film, written by Roger Vadim. BB plays the daughter of a nightclub owner, and is on the run. Cute film.


COME DANCE WITH ME (1959) – BB’s husband almost has a one night stand with a woman he meets, who owns a dance studio. When he is blackmailed, and the blackmailer is murdered, BB gets a job in her dance studio to track down the killer. Probably the most entertaining of the films in the set.


LOVE ON A PILLOW (1962) – BB saves a man in a hotel room after he attempts to take his life. They then begin a romance of sorts. Since he is an alcoholic, it doesn’t go well.


TWO WEEKS IN SEPTEMBER (1967) – BB as a model in swinging London. It begins as a very dated look at the time period. But, as BB heads off to Scotland, it gets a bit more tolerable.


THE VIXEN / LES FEMMES (1969) – They save the worst for last. BB plays a secretary who goes to work for a writer (with it in the contract that she will be “available to him” in any way he wants), to help him finish a book about his love life. Just terrible.

There is also a 15 minute featurette, “Larger Than Life: Brigitte Bardot and the Mythology of the Sex Symbol”. Hugh Hefner is briefly interviewed, but most is made up of interviews with a biographer and a few college professors about her career, along with stock footage and clips from the films in this set. If it had just been the biographer, giving a full overview of her career, it would be a lot more interesting. But as it is, it is rushed and unfocused.

For fans, it is well worth picking up the set. All the films are widescreen. Some of the transfers seem a bit drained of color, but that could be the shape that the films are in now.