Dear Brigitte

I remember seeing this in the movie theater when I was a boy; I'm the same age as Bill Mumy and was always interested in his shows.

Like many movies it's important to understand the times in which the movie was produced. This was the age when the computer was moving from a science fiction tool to a daily part of life. Many of the themes in the movie were things that people were wrestling with every day. A decent father trying his best to raise his children right but trapped in his own perceptions of life. A daughter grown up in a completely different age. A young boy who is a mathematical savant in a family of liberal arts specialists. The mother doing her best to uphold the respect her family and children deserve. All held together in a very off beat setting.

All of this makes for a unique comedy that to me has grown with age. No, it's not a knee-slapper. But there are interesting themes being played out that grow as you watch. The ending of a child's innocence. The brutal march of technology. The desire to hold on to traditions deemed vital. And in the final scenes, the knowledge that with all our desire to control the future, luck and pure chance will have it's say.

And Brigitte Bardot's part is.....how do I say it......wonderful? She comes across as interesting and genuine. I think it's a great role.

Don't expect pie-in-the-face-fun. If you can't wrap yourself around the show and the times it's understandable. It's quirky and offbeat and wasn't pre-shown to theaters so they could write the script, the script was written and shot and there it is. But if you have it a chance (or two) you'll be pleasantly surprised.

I've always have had a soft spot for family comedies, when they are charming, witty, and engaging, and this fits the bill. Its a harmless, lovely entertainment. Jimmy Stewart is is good, warm mode as a father who finds that his son (an endearing Bill Mumy) is a math genius who can solve the hardest of equations in just seconds and also has the knack for figuring out horse races as well. True he's also colorblind and tonedeaf, but not even geniuses can have everything. Glynis Johns has a bit of a smaller part as Stewart's wife but she is as welcome as ever and knows exactly how to play a scene.

The film receives its name from all the lett ers the boy sends to Brigitte Bardot, upon whom he has a case of a very youthful crush. Ms. Bardot actually appears toward the end, and her cameo is one of the high points of the film. This film might not be appreciated by cynics, nor by those wanting the height of sophistication, but as an example of cinematic comfort food, it is utterly enchanting.

I'm sure that the folks who were casting Lost in Space must have seen Dear Brigitte and said to themselves, young Billy Mumy would be perfect casting as the precocious Will Robinson.

Dear Brigitte is a film about a professor of literature who lives on a converted old Mississippi riverboat with his family and the former captain of the steamship, Ed Wynn. An almost hippie like existence for the very Republican James Stewart and his wife Glynis Johns and children Cindy Carol and Billy Mumy.

Stewart has an obsession about the sciences just taking over colleges, including his own and this fuels an additional obsession into finding a talent that must be hidden in his son. Young Mr. Mumy turns out to be both color blind and tone deaf, so art and music are out.

He turns out to be a mathematical genius though and Billy has an additional obsession himself, he wants to meet Brigitte Bardot. Now that's something the males in the audience can empathize with.

I think Dear Brigitte came out just a tad to early. A couple of years later with the flower power movement in full bloom, this thing would have really been big box office. Audiences might have really identified with an eccentric professor with his family living on a riverboat.

Fabian is also along for the ride as daughter Cindy Carol's boyfriend. He was nearing the end of the line as a teenage heart throb. But I'm sure his presence in the film brought more than a few dollars in.

John Williams and Jesse White who play a couple of con men do a nice job and of course we cannot forget the presence of Brigitte Bardot playing herself.

It's a pleasant innocuous little family comedy helped by a very good cast.

Jimmy Stewart makes it look so effortless that one would think he wasn't even acting. Which is the mark of a great actor. This was his second outing with Glynis Johns, the first time was in 1951 in the black and white British film, No Highway In The Sky.

In Dear Brigette, Stewart plays a Literature Professor at a College in California that like most of the culture of the day was struggling with the rampant advances of technology threatening to over shadow everyone and everything.

The main focus of the film is on child actor Bill Mumy who later went on to star in Lost In Space. He plays a young boy named "Erasmus", who is a math wizard and who can do complex calculations in his head, seemingly without effort, and not quite knowing how he does it.

While people and forces around him would like to capitalize on his gift, his father played by Stewart struggles to protect his son from them, and allow him to remain a "innocent little boy". A delightful interlude takes place half way through the picture when "Erasmus" receives an invitation to visit Paris, France and Brigette Bardot; whom he has been secrety writing to for some time, hence the pictures title.

In the 1960's this might have passed for wholesome family entertainment. Getting Fabian for a throw-away role was probably a good casting coup, and for comic relief you have Ed Wynn and Billy Mumy's 'Rain Man' routines. He is an IBM in sneakers, from which most of the plot develops. He secretly writes a love letter to Bardot every night and one day he gets a response in the form of an invitation to visit her in France. Billy and dad Jimmy Stewart go to Paris and have a meeting with Miss Bardot. She gives the little boy an autograph, a kiss and a puppy.

Inoffensive little comedy that might give you a laugh or two. I like movies that reference real movie stars in their title, like "Being John Malkovich" and "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" so this makes the hat trick for me.