On October 10, 1968, Barbarella was released and Jane Fonda, at the top of her form & beauty, became every young men's wet dream. The movie directed by Roger Vadin, then her husband, is a soft porn/sci-fi adventure featuring Barbarella, a space traveller with a highly sexual appetite. The movie is eye-candy from start to finish - it's Franco-Italian design all the way through, a celebration of petroleum products and the best of the lava lamp aesthetic. Not to be forgotten, Barbarella' wardrobe was designed by Paco Rabanne, a reason in itself to watch this deliciously camp movie.
Fun Facts:
-Barbarella was the first science fiction hero from the comics to be adapted into a feature film as opposed to a serial (Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, her male predecessors, had only appeared in serials up to this point).
-SoGo, the evil city Barbarella travels to, is a reference to Biblical cities Sodom and Gomorrah.
-The film's missing scientist character famously inspired the band name of 1980s pop group Duran Duran
-The scenes during the opening credits where Barbarella seems to float around her spaceship were filmed by having Jane Fonda lie on a huge piece of plexiglas with a picture of the spaceship underneath her. It was then filmed from above, creating the illusion that she is in zero gravity. (If you look carefully, you can see the reflection in the glass as she removes her gloves.)
Watch Barbarella's strip-tease opening sequence and just drool!
1 comment:
"...cause it seems whenever we're together, the planets all stand still..."
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