movie backdrop

over 1 year ago

Barbarella

a review by CinemaSerf

I can't help but wonder what Jane Fonda might think if she were to look back on this sexy sci-fi nonsense from 50 years ago. It is not alone in being terrible - there were plenty of drug-induced/enhanced films made in the late 60s so as to render this particular effort indeterminable from many others; but the fact that Fonda took on this role as an intergalactic space cadet on the search for "Durand Durand" and his (euphemistic ?) "Positronic Ray" is what is astonishing. The script is dreadful, the props buyer obviously didn't have the budget to stretch beyond paper mâché and bubble-wrap and the synthesised music is only marginally more interesting than that you might have heard in a Soviet lift around the same time. John Philip Law was already in his 30's when he agreed to dress in a large nappy and don some huge angelic wings as "Pygar" and Anita Pallenberg "The Great Tyrant" was pretty much never seen on screen again. It has acquired cult status, but as is usual with most similarly described films - nobody is ever truly sure why...