Too much of everything

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The words romp & rollicking come to mind while viewing Louis Malle's action packed ode to female empowerment. Circa 1900, Maria (Brigitte Bardot), the daughter of an Irish explosives expert, finds herself stranded in Mexico (she and her father bomb their way across the Atlantic). Running into a traveling carnival Bardot ends up the musical comedy partner of showgirl Jeanne Moreau (also named Maria). Together they sweep to fame throughout the country only to get mixed up with revolutionaries and help to liberate a village from local land barons. There's much to enjoy with this film, from Henri Decaë's great cinematography to a rousing score by Georges Delerue. Malle keeps things light and there are many moments of humor and outright slapstick. Moreau & Bardot have great chemistry and the excellent supporting cast includes Claudio Brook, Paulette Dubost, and the oddly chosen George Hamilton (as a very Zapata-like legend).

I love this movie from beginning to end this is one of the best movies from 1960s a very commercial one at the time of the movie Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau were at the peak of their fame Moreau was the erotic and intellectual muse of the best European director of the time and Bardot was the queen of the cinema her beauty was at the top she has no rival,by this time both star has work with Louis Malle he was at some point Moreau lover, the movie is set in the time of the Mexican revolution is a western and a musical at the same time, very well done and one of the biggest international hit of Moreau and B.B career , Claudio Brooks is in the movie a major Mexican actor and the star of Simon en el Desierto by Luis Bunuel, i just love this movie, George Hamilton is in it too , this IS a movie with the two most famous European star of the 20 century

Louis Malle made a total of four films with Jeanne Moreau that couldn't be more different. He established critical acclaim for both of them with Lift to the Scaffold, then a ban for the amorous Les Amants. A dark meditation came five years later with The Fire Within, followed almost immediately by this highly commercial, enjoyable, lightweight romp.Viva Maria! is a joyous celebration of female bonding across early twentieth century Mexico as the two Marias – played by Jeanne Moreau and Bridget Bardot – right wrongs, take their fill of life and love, lead a revolution, blow things up, invent striptease, and help men to shoot round corners.We meet the first Maria while she is still a child. Before the opening credits have finished, she has gaily helped Dad blow up the English many times. Ireland 1891. London 1894. Gibraltar 1901. Finally in Central America she has to blow up Dad while the baddies are still shooting him on the bridge. Undeterred, she continues alone, now a young woman (in the form of tomboy Bridget Bardot), catching a train on the run as we catch the last of the opening titles. It was a hectic race. As she finally sits down on the tail of the train we enjoy her sigh of exertion and relief.Before long, Bardot Maria has teamed up with travelling singer, Moreau Maria – who she holds at knifepoint before becoming bosom buddies. The next visual gasp comes as Bardot takes off her cap – a moment Malle milks for all it is worth. Somehow concealed under the boyish hat, long golden locks fall down. Bardot sheds her androgynous Calamity Jane look for full-on pout and the camera lingers knowingly. This pistol-totin' gal will bed whoever takes her fancy and chalk their names up on the inside wall of the wagon. It is the classic Bardot imagery – that inspired both 'bardolâtrie' and comments of noted feminist Simone de Beauvoir defending her as a manifestation of a new, artifice-free type of femininity, "as much a hunter as she is a prey."During the tours of the musical theatre circus, the pair perform a number where an accidentally ripped dress leads them to accidentally invent striptease. Although they only bare down to their knickerbockers, the show is a smash hit, considerably raising the troupe's profile and income.By this point, silly but hilariously executed gags have become well-entrenched. Men pay to see the show with chickens if they have no money. English colonials speak with frightfully proper accents and discuss tea. The two girls join the revolution after Bardot, who has a common sense objection to injustice, takes a pot shot at a local bad guy chief. (St Miguel is owned by four families – details are hazy – presumably the English stay in the background drinking tea and the Catholic Church stays with whoever's winning.) The Marias are being worshipped by the populace (due to another hilarious accident) and put to the Rack – the Catholic Inquisition having apparently stayed over a few centuries in Mexico rather than returning to Spain. The Mexican Inquisition is linked visually to that other popular pogrom, the Klu Klux Klan.Viva Maria! almost sags in the middle from the weight of non-stop action. It is a great tribute to Malle's skill that everything has gone so perfectly when so much could easily have gone wrong. But just as it starts to get a bit samey, Moreau surprises everyone, audience and other characters alike, by a big soliloquy after the death of her hunky proletariat lover. "It's her big scene," comments one of the locals as Moreau descends the stairs with Shakespearean majesty. Perhaps it was this scene that clinched her Bafta in a close race with Bardot that year.The last half proves a roller coaster of inventive explosions and gags that keep us endlessly on the edge of our seat. Viva Maria! is straight entertainment with no attempt to be deep and meaningful. Yet, unlike many lightweight mainstream films, its dominant ideologies are refreshingly subversive.

I originally saw Viva Maria! at a Toronto cinema in the mid-1960s in the company of three college friends and, upon emerging, I think that each of us would have cheerfully enlisted in a revolutionary cause of the kind depicted in the film. The Moreau-Bardot magic was irresistible! As I recall, the North American release of this film ended with the cheers of the crowd of San Miguel as the circus troupe departed. On a recently acquired laserdisc pressing of the film, however, I note that there is an extra minute -- the European ending in which the troupe returns to the European stage.Pay particular attention to the musical score -- composed by Georges Delerue (1925-1992), most of whose work was for the European cinema but he was, from time to time, commissioned to compose for American and British films. He had a particular talent for evoking the nostalgic longing inherent in mediæval and renaissance themes. In fact, in a radio interview, Delerue once indicated that, where most film composers would start to experiment with tunes on a battered piano, he would often wander into archives of ancient music to get his inspiration. In the opening credits to Viva Maria!, a French ballad of the young heroine is picked up by the orchestra in a delightful example of Delerue's skill. (By the way, the film's credits do not seem to name the singer, but whoever he is, the man's diction is so clear that even an anglophone "retard" ought to be able to follow the French lyrics. If anyone knows who he is, I would be pleased to learn his identity.)