Plucking the Daisy
1956 French film
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Plucking the Daisy (French: En effeuillant la marguerite) is a 1956 French comedy film directed by Marc Allégret and starring Daniel Gélin and Brigitte Bardot.
Roger Vadim
| Plucking the Daisy | |
|---|---|
| |
| Directed by | Marc Allégret |
| Written by | Marc Allégret Roger Vadim |
| Based on | William Benjamin |
| Produced by | Raymond Eger |
| Starring | Daniel Gélin Brigitte Bardot |
| Cinematography | Louis Page |
| Edited by | Suzanne de Troeye |
| Music by | Paul Misraki |
| Color process | Black and white |
Production companies | Films EGE Hoche Productions |
| Distributed by | Les Films Corona |
Release date |
|
Running time | 101 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Box office | 3,296,793 admissions (France)[1] |
It was also known as Mam'selle Striptease and Please Mr Balzac. (Also known as "Mademoiselle Striptease" and often confused with 1957 French film "Mademoiselle Strip-tease"[2])
Plot
General Dumont discovers that his daughter Agnes is "A.D.", author of a scandalous under-the-counter novel.
He tries to send her to a convent but she escapes to Paris to live with her brother. On the train she meets Daniel, a journalist. Agnes thinks her brother is a rich artist but he's actually a poor guide in the Balzac Museum.
Agnes needs money and enters an amateur striptease contest. Daniel is covering the contest for his magazine.
Cast
- Daniel Gélin as Daniel Roy
- Brigitte Bardot as Agnès Dumont
- Robert Hirsch as Roger Vital
- Jacques Dumesnil as General Dumont
- Jacques Bouillaud as Himself
- Georges Chamarat as Bacchus
- Jacques Fervil as Himself
- Jacques Jouanneau as Edouard, Friend of Daniel
- Mauricet as Monsieur Valentin
- Yves-Marie Maurin as Toto
- Madeleine Barbulée as Mme Dumont
- Anne Collette as La secrétaire
- Gabrielle Fontan as Himself
- Luciana Paluzzi as Sophia (as Luciana Paoluzzi)
- Nadine Tallier as Magali
- Darry Cowl as Hubert Dumont
Production
Roger Vadim had just written a movie which launched Bardot as a leading lady, Naughty Girl.[3] He called this movie "a hack job based on an 'original idea' by the producer which was anything but original... I changed the plot and wrote an amusing, romantic and sexy story."[4]
Reception
Box office
In 1956, the film was the 20th most popular of the year, at the French box office.[5] It was released before Bardot's film And God Created Woman, which was the 13th most popular and Naughty Girl which was 12th.[6]
Critical reception
Variety felt Bardot "still lacks glib comedy assurance."[7]
It was released in the US as Mademoiselle Striptease. The Washington Post called it "one of the nicest comedies of the summer."[8] The Los Angeles Times called it "a most delightful, naughty and very funny comedy... Bardot strikes pure gold... it's strictly a fun show that doesn't try to prove a thing."[9]
It was also released in the US as Please Mr Balzac. The New York Times said the "sole excuse for this singularly unfrothy and unfunny romantic comedy is Brigitte Bardot....[a] thin, old-fashioned, slightly smutty and extremely dull charade... The picture is pretty awful. It needn't have been."[10]
In a retrospective review, Turner Classic Movies called it "a typical French romantic comedy... complete with a meet-cute on a train, and plenty of loving shots of Bardot's pert behind.... typical of the suggestive but innocuous films that Bardot made early in her career."[11]