1/28/2023

The Girl in the Bikini

Secret Cinema presents Art House Oddities

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This second film appearance of Brigitte Bardot did not arrive on our shores until six years after its production. By then, “B.B.” was the world’s biggest sex symbol, making international headlines after the success of Roger Vadim’s And God Created Woman. In 1952, Bardot was just 18 years old and taking all of her career direction from Vadim, then her fiancé. In this early role, she projects what the New York Times called, “a fetching winsomeness and innocence.” The simple plot concerns a young law student (Jean-François Calvé) who partners with a cigarette smuggler to search for ancient treasure spotted off the coast of Corsica on a previous visit—but the boy’s real motive might be to again find the pretty lighthouse keeper’s daughter (Bardot) who swims daily off of the rocks. (Willy Rozier, France, 1952, 86 min.) Dubbed in English

Co-presented with Secret Cinema

PROGRAM WILL INCLUDE SURPRISE 35mm SHORT SUBJECTS

About Secret Cinema's Art House Oddities: Art House Oddities is an ongoing, irregular Secret Cinema series examining the early fare of "art house" cinemas. These specialty theaters catered to post-war audiences' increased curiosity about foreign and independent films -- the box office scores of which often benefited from their adult themes and lax censorship. This era of distribution, in which with many works were re-edited for America, and most foreign language films dubbed into English, has been largely forgotten. Yet, adventurous viewers saw many films this way in the 1950s and '60s, before "repertory cinemas" replaced art house distribution…and many theaters with "Art" in their title turned to hardcore pornography in their final acts.