Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman

A veritable orgy of campy decor and even campier dialogue ("If there's one thing I can't stand, it's being treated the way I treat other people!") this would-be erotic extravaganza stars an ageing and puffy Brigitte Bardot as a jet-set nymphomaniac - who fancies herself a reincarnation of the 16th century Spanish seducer. Both the film and its heroine labour under the delusion of being a whole lot sexier than they really are.

The "plot" (I use the term loosely) involves Bardot confessing to a dishy priest (Mathieu Carriere) how she drove one of her lovers to suicide. Half an hour into this mess, and you'll know how the poor b**tard felt. Undaunted by the tedium around her, Bardot seduces a married lawyer (Maurice Ronet) and they jet off to Sweden, supposed Paradise of Free Love. (Never mind if the Bacchanalian revels we SEE are no more steamy than your average Sunday school picnic.)

On a boat train to London, Bardot enjoys a lesbian frolic with the young and nubile wife (Jane Birkin) of a sleazy gangster (Robert Hossein). How the sight of Bardot and Birkin, nude in bed together, could be turned into such a non-event is still beyond me. No matter. Bardot sets her insatiable sights on a hippie musician played by Robert Walker, Jr. Yes, he's the son of Bruno from Strangers on a Train and 40s icon Jennifer Jones...although talent HAS been known to skip a generation.

Granted, Don Juan '73 is an abysmal movie, but there is fun to be had. Birkin looks heart-meltingly gorgeous and Ronet even tries to do some acting - though why he should bother when nobody else does is one of life's mysteries. Anyone who shares my weakness for bouffant hairdos, zebra-skin rugs and purple velvet flares will probably enjoy it. Still, the final impression is of Vadim, after 15 years as a high-style provocateur, struggling to keep up with a Flower Power audience. Is there any sight sadder than hipster who's been out-hipped?

David Melville

An erotic drama in which Brigitte Bardot plays a woman who seduces and then destroys a series of men. It was directed by her ex-husband Roger Vadim, most famous as the director of Barbarella. Quite a stylised and glossy affair, even if its not as involving dramatically as it probably should be. Still, Brigitte Bardot's in it.

To get it out of the way, I never believed that Roger Vadim created BB or vice versa. They were both products of a film era that needed urgently some sexual awakening with the difference that he was a not-so-hot writer-director while she was a force of nature waiting to unleash her power. And boy did she do it!

Almost two decades after "Et Dieu... créa la femme" (1956) and after trying for years to replicate its success with BB stand-ins (Jane Fonda, Annette Stroyberg, Rebecca De Mornay, etc.) Vadim reunited with Bardot for what must have seemed (to them) a terrific idea: BB, the eternal seducer as Don Juan, the seducer par excellence. BB playing a stud? Not on your life! Her part is of a female seducer who thinks she was Don Juan on a previous incarnation. Really.

I think all this Don Juan business is just an excuse to show some hanky panky between Bardot and Birkin since lesbian love scenes were very popular in the early 70s and Vadim gracefully obliged. After all, if he wanted to presume of remaining a cinema transgresseur, showing BB in a lesbian situation is not such a bad idea. However by 1973 Bardot was no longer BB, that half a child, half a woman that conquered the world. Mind you, her charm and personality was still there but her face showed the puffiness and lines of middle age in spite of being shot through filters and special lightning.

Maybe the Don Juan concept could have worked better ten or fifteen years before but, if you are a Bardot follower, you know she did something very similar in Julien Duvivier´s "La femme et le pantin" (1959) filmed in Spain. I say "similar" because the story, although based on a novel by Pierre Louÿs, owes a lot to Prosper Mérimée' s "Carmen", that gypsy dame who plays with men' s emotions, a part that seem designed for BB who was then at the top of her powers as the ultimate seductress. Who is Carmen but a female version of Don Juan?

In short this is a not-so-good-film that must be seen for several reasons. First of all because it marked the end of Bardot' s film career (she did another film in 1973 and that was it), also for the presence of two actors that are also true cinema legends, Maurice Ronet and Robert Hossein (both deserve better). Last but not least, some praise must go to the Eastmancolor cinematography by veteran cameraman Henri Decaë. The rest you can throw away, Vadim et all.

Brigitte Bardot must have had a very strong personality to make "and God created woman" the smash hit it was at the end of the fifties.Vadim/Bardot,it's Pygmalion in reverse :an actress who had un petit je ne sais quoi who created the worst director of the whole nouvelle vague.Vadim made half a dozen of movies with BB,each one lousier than the one before.This one takes the biscuit:not only a good cast is wasted (Robert Hossein,Matthieu Carrière,Maurice Ronet,Jane Birkin)but most of the time ,the movie and BB's lines are unintentionally funny:how can we take seriously this priest ,BB's cousin?the macho Hossein and his wife who discovers Sapphic pleasures with Jeanne/Don Juan?

One cannot even call this farce "woman's lib" because Jeanne is chastised for having been a bad gal,like the true Don Juan.

NB:It's BB last real film;afterwards,she was to appear in a small part in "l'histoire très bonne et très joyeuse de Colinot Trousse-Chemise"(1973),which, in spite of its title ,was neither "très bonne" nor "très joyeuse".Then it was silence.Outside Garbo ,there's no other example of an actress ,still young (BB was 39),who calls it quits at such an early age.She became an animal rights activist -and still is-.

Ms don juan (in the us ) aka don juan ou si don juan était une femme. Brigitte bardot had been married to roger vadim, the director of this film, back in the 1950s. Jeanne seems to really get off on bragging about her exploits over men, with the priest (mathieu carrière). We see her deeds in flashback, as she recounts her evil ways. Lots of sad, mournful, wailing music. The film itself is long, and just okay. But it's fun to see some of these big names way back when! Some fun scenery from paris in the 1970s. Some blood and guts. Co-stars jane birkin, who had the birkin bags named for her! And robert walker junior. Vadim also co-wrote the screenplay for barbarella and plucking the daisy. These are all shown on turner classics and other channels now and then.