FILM (1956)

And God Created Woman Brigitte Bardot, Curd Jurgens, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Christian Marquand Director: Roger Vadim

On the strength of this film, one might suspect director Roger Vadim was a misogynist. For one thing, the title is ominous, not celebratory - referring to the moment in Genesis when Eve is made and the original sin becomes inevitable. For another, the women in this movie are awful.

There are two frumpy matrons who do little but yell, a handful of vapid young things used to tart up the scenery and then there is Juliette Hardy, the main character, played by slinky, pouty Brigitte Bardot.

This is the film that made her - as well as several other members of the cast - and yet, half a century on, it's difficult to see what the initial fuss was about. She is unequivocally gorgeous, and the opening shot of her sunbathing nude behind a laundry line against the glittering backdrop of the Cote d'Azur has not lost its charm. But Bardot plays Juliette as an insolent brat without depth and, by end of the film, one rather wishes someone would just slap her (as it turns out - spoiler alert - someone pulls a gun on her instead).

Juliette is an orphan living in St Tropez with the Morin family. She is in love with Antoine Tardieu (Christian Marquand), whose family owns a shipyard.

Eric Carradine (Curd Jurgens, better appreciated in these parts for his turn as Mark Conrad in 1959's Ferry to Hong Kong) is a tycoon who wants to build a casino on the shipyard's land. Both men lust after Juliette, while Michel (Jean-Louis Trintignant), the quieter Tardieu brother, loves her from afar.