France’s two top female stars, Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau play the two Marias – a singer and the orphaned daughter of an Irish rebel – who get mixed up with a dashing rebel leader (George Hamilton) and take up the cause of the peasants in South America.
Shot by a French director in Eastmancolor and Panavision on location in Mexico, Viva Maria attempted to emulate the visual quality of Hollywood movies, while at the same time wittily sending up the kind of super-production it is.
The gaiety of this large-scale production is in complete contrast to director Louis Malle’s previous film, the downbeat Le Feu Follet.
Some critics deplored this foray by Malle into commercial cinema.
Maria I
Brigitte Bardot
Maria Fitzgerald O’Malley (Maria II)
Jeanne Moreau
Flores
George Hamilton
Mme Diogène
Paulette Dubost
Diogène
Gregor von Rezzori
Werther
Poldo Bendandi
The Great Rodolfo
Claudio Brook
Rodríguez
Carlos López Moctezuma
Juanito Diogène
Jonathan Eden
Father Superior
Francisco Reiguera
Janine
Adriana Roel
Don Alvaro
José Baviera
Dictator of San Miguel
José Ángel Espinoza
Father of Maria II
Fernando Wagner
Pablo
Roberto Pedret
Director
Louis Malle
