Barbarella

[Alatar]

I think I was about 7 when they showed this movie on the one and only TV station we had when I was a kid. 1976, 77 and 78 were really amazing years for movies, at least for me. Superman, Star Wars and Grease all came out round then and I wanted to see them all. Of course, the nearest cinema was 15 miles away and money was tight, and in the mid-late 70's that meant that cinema trips were "special occasions". Meaning Communions and Confirmations, not birthdays. There were too many birthdays to warrant a "Special Occasion".

Anyway, point being, I never got to see Star Wars, Superman or Grease in the cinema even though I would have happily offered a limb in return for any one of them. So, it was around this time that Barbarella was shown. I knew nothing about Jane Fonda, or about the comic it was based on, but it was a Sci-Fi movie and it was on TV! I wanted to see it dammit! But it was on after the watershed and there were warnings about its adult content. I wasn't allowed to see it. A friend of mine in school crept down the stairs and watched bits of it through the window over the sitting room door. She told me there were boobs in it. I was devastated.

Well, the other night I put this unfulfilled childhood dream to rest. It was on Sky Classics a few weeks ago, so I recorded it. Its incredibly dated, badly dubbed and looks like it had less budget than one episode of the first Star Trek. The titillation was good though, and Jane Fonda had a killer body.

And now I hear there's a remake in the works...

[Rowanberry]

It really is a cult classic, one of those "so bad it's good" movies.

But, a remake?

I never saw it on the big screen, but it was shown on TV a few years ago, and that's when I managed to catch it.

[axordil]

Angels don't make love, they are love.

[Alatar]

Apparently Robert Rodriguez is planning a remake. Drew Barrymore has been mentioned as a possible Barbarella, but I think thats just speculation.

[Holbytla]

This is one of the first movies I ever saw on cable.
Someone was definitely hallucinating when they devised this story.

[baby tuckoo]

Being very very much older than you, my dear Alatar, I was allowed to enter the theatre to watch Jane frolick in space tights with . . . um . . . John Michael Vincent? . . . I don't exactly remember, though it might be a question tonight at Trivia.


I do remember very clearly how boring it was. I was too young (though in my majority) to appreciate the trashiness or the "so bad it's good" aspect. When I got home, my older sister asked me if I "beat off" while watching, which (of course) didn't happen until later.


the baby has always been a creature of propriety.





I watched Cat Ballou on TCM yesterday. It's a Jane Fonda movie that's actually good, though not because of her.

[vison]

Cat Ballou.
Here is one of those wugga wugga moments. I was just sayin', yes indeed I was just sayin', to REL and Jude, that "Cat Ballou" was a pretty good movie. REL had mentioned that his pop really liked Lee Marvin and I said he oughta watch Cat Ballou iffen he hadn't already since it featured a winsome Jane Fonda, a cute Dwayne Hickman (whatever happened to him?) and a double dose of Lee Marvin.

It was quite the hit, as I recall.

Barbarella belongs with Zardoz.

Maybe they are together, somewhere.

[baby tuckoo]

That was Dwayne Hickman???? Now that you mention it, of course it was. (The Indian was the best of her inept gang.)

It's the best spoof of westerns. Much better than Burning Saddles, imho. Like Airplane, you need to have seen many of the genre to get all the references, and I'm sure I don't, though most.


And the other little cutie was Michael Callan, and I can't remember what TV series he was in. Some romantic comedy. Can anyone help?


Holby said:

Someone was definitely hallucinating when they devised this story.

There's a story?

[Holbytla]

Well I guess that depends on your definition of story. Granted Barbarella was stretching the definition, but..
Barbarella was like a porn movie without the porn.

Or so I hear.

[Primula Baggins]

My dad can't talk about Cat Ballou (the stagecoach scene where Lee Marvin comes into town) without crying with laughter.

I think I saw a bit of Barbarella once. I have problems with the Sixties esthetic, the mass-media one—the plastic movies made by old men to try to amuse the Youth, who were looking elsewhere. So it didn't do much for me (and as a rule I have no problem with looking at pretty women; women are pretty to look at, even though I am quite predictably straight).

[vison]

Plastic movies. Yes. Although I wouldn't, myself, put "Barbarella" in that category. I think it was beyond the imagination of the guyz who made Beach Blanket Bingo and other atrocities of that nature. I understand that it was Annette Funicello who was the draw, if there was a draw, in those awful movies. (Boyz used to watch the Micky Mouse Club to see her bosom grow, I am told.)

Jane Fonda is an oddity. I always found her to look awkward and seem ill at ease, yet I suppose that was just me. She was pretty in a Fonda way. I felt a lot of compassion for her, she had an awful life, one way or the other.

Dino de Laurentis produced Barbarella and it was directed by Roger Vadim, to whom Jane Fonda was married at the time. It was shot simultaneously in English and French, with Fonda doing her own French. I've read that he was nasty to her.

I also thought it was an incoherent mess and neither erotic nor funny. But then, that's me, again.

[Alatar]

<OT>

Jane was actually very good in "On Golden Pond" where her real life difficulties with her father made the emotions palpable on screen. It was probably Henry Fonda's finest role and Katherine Hepburn was no slouch either.

Magnificent movie.

</OT>

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

I could never get past Jane Fonda's 'Someone just dropped a live hamster into my pants' expression. Zardoz and Barbarella come from the same strange stable certainly. The opening sequence of Barbarella is, um, bearable, the rest is, um, strange.