Whilst it's true that inside every fat man is a thin man trying to get out the same thing doesn't apply to every big-budget movie but in this case it does. It seems evident that once Louis Malle had secured the services of Moreau and Bardot they financiers kept throwing money at him and demanding a bigger movie than the traffic would bear. Apparently Malle had seen and admired Vera Cruz and thought it might be fun to substitute two gals for Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster and who knows, he may have been right. As it stands we'll never know and we are left with an uneven film with a fine performance from Paulette Dubost, a non-performance from George Hamilton and not much chemistry between the two leads. I don't know about you but I've had it up to here with 'revolution' movies set in South America so it already had one strike on it before I took my seat. I managed to sit through it and though I admire the Malle of Milou en Mai, Au Revoir, Les enfants, Zazie dans le metro etc I won't be looking for the DVD of this one.
Review of Viva Maria!
