And God Created Woman (1956)

Roger Vadim created a scandal with his first film, And God Created Woman, which starred his young wife, Brigitte Bardot.

The eroticism and nudity in the love scenes and the amoral nature of her sexy 18-year-old French heroine, Juliet, caused the ruckus. But Vadim complained that he could not go as far as he wished because the censors forced him to cut many sequences.

Juliet (Bardot) decides to marry the younger brother of the man she really loves as an alternative to being sent back to the orphanage for her undisciplined conduct. To complicate matters, a wealthy businessman who heads the ship-building business employing her husband and his brothers also covets her friendship.

She tries hard to be a good wife, giving up all her former friends and entertainments. But her passion for her brother-in-law proves too great, and discouraged over her failure to control her easily disturbed emotions, she reverts to her gay, uninhibited life.

With a gun in his pocket, her husband finds her cavorting at a local pub and attempts to convince her she’s needed at home.

In reply to those who criticised him for exhibiting his wife in such a manner, Vadim said, “Brigitte loves the nude scenes because she hates hypocrisy. She is a girl of her own time, liberated from all feelings of guilt and free from all taboos imposed by society”.

The Roman Catholic church in the US banned its members from attending a Lake Placid cinema for six months after it showed the film, but the critic François Truffaut defended the film in an article published in Arts magazine, titled “BB is the victim of an intrigue”.

Apart from the kittenish charms of Bardot, the film revealed the delights of St Tropez in colour and CinemaScope.

Juliet
Brigitte Bardot
Michel
Jean-Louis Trintignant
Eric
Curd Jürgens
Madame Morin
Jeanne Marken
Madame Vigier-Lefranc
Jean Tissier
Lucienne
Isabelle Cory
Madame Tardieu
Mary Glory
Christian
Georges Poujouly
Antoine
Christian Marquand

Director
Roger Vadim