During the 1960s, French television viewers who did not go out for New Year’s Eve were joined in the homes by an annual musical special starring Brigitte Bardot. Whereas most international movie audience only knew Bardot as the glamourous sex kitten from (usually) less-than-memorable movies, French audiences appreciated her talents for song and dance. Indeed, Bardot enjoyed a successful side career in pop music and many of her albums have found their way into American music stores.
Sadly, most of her television specials remain completely unknown outside of France. The one which found its way around the world, albeit through bootleg video channels, is the 1967 “Special Bardot.” This funky, psychedelic one-hour offering serves both as a groovy time capsule for everything that was wonderful and awful about the 60s culture and, in a way, it rings the beginning of the end for Bardot’s career.
By 1967, Bardot’s star was beginning to wane. After more than 10 years as an international icon, her appeal was fraying due to a combination of poor career choices and a new youth audience who wanted their own stars to worship. “Special Bardot,” which is basically a plotless string of music video-style numbers, tried to reinvent Bardot as fitting into the image of a mod rocker who was in touch with the cultural zeitgeist. While there was nothing wrong in seeing Bardot clad in a leather mini-skirt and black go-go boots while mounting a Harley Davidson or grooving to a sitar solo while dolled up in paisley gypsy clothing and a matching headband, there was just an itty-bitty problem. It was not that she didn’t look good (hell, she could wear the proverbial potato sack and look good). It was just not her style. Having Bardot dress as a teeny-bopper made no sense: she was a mature, sensual woman who was trying to shoehorn herself into a cultural statement that did not fit her image or personality.
It also didn’t help that Bardot’s approach to singing for the camera was robotic. For most of “Special Bardot,” she would position herself front and center, look into the camera, and sing without betraying the slightest emotion. Whatever humor, irony, sensuality or rue that was spiced into her songs were not hinted at in her stoic beauty.
Yet at odd moments, “Special Bardot” percolates with unexpected whimsy. In a 1920s tribute (how this got into the show is a mystery), Bardot glams it up in flapper chic while singing “Everybody Loves My Baby” in English. She vamps, camps, and dances a Charleston while a Dixieland band bounces the song along with infectious glee. It is a thoroughly charming period piece, and it is a shame that Ken Russell didn’t see this when casting his 1970’s musical “The Boy Friend” (Bardot would’ve been far more impressive in that 1920s-style extravaganza than the pneumatic Twiggy). Another number has Bardot strolling around London’s fashionable Carnaby Street. She is clearly enjoying the moment and watching her eyes light up as she peeks around the trendy shops of the heart of swinging London is a charm.
And for Europop addicts, “Special Bardot” provides a double-dose of Bardot in collaboration with the legendary Serge Gainsbourg. Their first number, “Comic Book,” takes place in a pop art setting reminiscent of the typical villain HQ on the TV “Batman,” with Gainsbourg talk-singing with insouciant Gallic charm as Bardot, made up to look like a comic book super hero (complete with cape, tight leotards and, oddly, a jet-black wig) goes through martial arts-style defense moves while exclaiming the fight-scene sound effects of the comic book format. Their second number makes the whole production worth watching: “Bonnie and Clyde,” with Gainsbourg and Bardot as the legendary bank robbers in a farmhouse hideout. Inspired by the hit movie of that year, the song is a hypnotic deification of the criminal duo (whose rebellion against authority made them heroes of the disaffected youth of the era). No one would confuse Gainsbourg with Warren Beatty, but Bardot was costumed and groomed to be the mirror image of Faye Dunaway’s Bonnie Parker. But Bardot, of course, was infinitely sexier than Dunaway and watching the French sex kitten point a machine gun gives a new argument for gun control debate: weapons should only be in the possession of sexy women!
“Special Bardot” would’ve probably remained unknown to all but French television viewers had the program not been released on Japanese laserdisc in the late 1980s (“Bonnie and Clyde” was a hit song in Japan). The American bootleg video releases of this title can be pegged to the Japanese edition, but a genuine commercial DVD release is unlikely given that “Special Bardot” is almost entirely in French without subtitles and Bardot (who quite show business roughly six years after this show was broadcast) no longer carries the clout to justify bringing the program into retail channels.
Yet “Special Bardot” is worth checking out, if only to get a good retro laugh at the excess of the late 1960s cultural fashion statements and to appreciate the most beautiful woman in French movies at the last peak of her sultry career.
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The other thing that struck me about this review: About the point of Bardot’s efforts to remake herself seeming contrived, it also contrasted wildly with Elvis’ comeback special in that, when “in the round” with his old backing musicians, he truly was more in the “zeitgeist” with his Bill Belew-designed leather jacket (which was inspired, not by the ’50’s period when he first burst onto the scene, but by what The Doors’ Jim Morrison wore at the time), and the sense that, if unencumbered by the shackles imposed on him by Col. Parker, this was truly what Elvis was. You could see him bringing new life to such old chestnuts as “That’s All Right (Mama),” and it was as if the years all melted away. (It didn’t hurt that, vocally, he was at his absolute peak at that point; ditto for his appearance, so much so it maddened me that “leather jacket wearing Elvis” wasn’t considered as an option for when the Postal Service issued Elvis stamps years ago.)
It’s also fitting that both Bardot and Elvis first made their names in 1956, and yet found themselves back-to-back on the NBC schedule on the night of Dec. 3, 1968. Another pivotal year for both was 1973: In that year, “Bebe” made her last movies (including the aforementioned film with Jane Birkin); while Elvis helmed the internationally-broadcast “Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite” – and, later that year, saw his marriage to Priscilla end in divorce and his health become more precarious, with news of missed shows and hospitalizations for one thing or another dominating for the remaining four years of his life.
And indeed, her ratings that December night in 1968, though not Elvis-level, were higher than the CBS interview – 10.7 times, in fact (she garnered 75% of the audience tuned in at that hour, vs. a mere 7% for Justice Black talking about the Bill of Rights).
Can’t agree with you saying Bardot was infinitely sexier than Faye Dunaway. Nobody was sexier than Faye Dunaway in my view
Thank you for pointing that out, WB – it has been so many years since I wrote this that I am surprised that anyone bothered to dig it up. Considering that this is mostly a French-language production, I am very surprised that NBC aired this special.
According to TV Guide, the Bonnie & Clyde spoof was part of the special as aired on NBC; as was her hippie spoof with Sacha Distel, the English-language songs (besides “Everybody Loves My Baby,” there was also “Mister Sun,” “The Devil’s in Town” and “Tell the Truth”); her French numbers (“Bubble Gum,” “Contact,” “I’ll Always Come Back to You” and “A Day Like Another” – TV Guide listed the song titles in English, alas); Distel singing “It’s a Good Life” in English; Bardot in a glass-bottomed boat, water-skiing and “going aloft in a balloon”; and a flamenco guitar solo segment from Manitas de Plata. (It would seem the Harley-Davidson number may’ve been cut.) Evidently there were a few changes made to the show by the time NBC got its clammy claws on it (besides adding on the Peacock to the beginning and the 1965-70 NBC “snake” animation at the end); plus by the time of the NBC airing, Serge Gainsbourg had moved on to a new “muse,” British actress Jane Birkin (who later co-starred with Bardot in her next-to-last-film ever, 1973’s “Don Juan ’73”), and in fact the two were halfway through the recording of his composition “Je T’aime . . . Moi Non Plus” that transformed Ms. Birkin into an international superstar (while Bardot’s own recording career had all but petered out). TV Guide also referred to the special’s title in its listings as “Brigitte Bardot” – under which moniker IMDb lists it.
In retrospect, it did seem that Bardot’s attempt to remake herself here was more contrived and over-the-top when compared with Elvis on his hugely successful “comeback special” that aired before it (and ended up the highest rated special for all of 1968) – plus spurring the beginning of his “new” career which involved recording in Memphis, performing before live audiences, etc.
There is a little problem with the comment “‘Special Bardot’ would’ve probably remained unknown to all but French television viewers had the program not been released on Japanese laserdisc in the late 1980s (‘Bonnie and Clyde’ was a hit song in Japan)” – as it in fact had shown “legitimately” in the U.S., less than a year after its original French airing, on December 3, 1968 on the NBC network – back-to-back with, and immediately after, Elvis Presley’s much-heralded “comeback special.” The American airing of “Special Bardot” was sponsored by Burlington Industries, whose advertising for this show referred to the title as “The Unabridged Brigitte Bardot.” A complimentary LP was pressed by RCA Custom of the soundtrack to this program. But Bardot’s little oddball special did not provide the audiences that flocked to see Elvis roar back to life after nearly a decade of making movies of worsening quality; besides her appeal waning by this point, another factor in this was that Elvis as was presented on his “comeback special” was a tough act for anyone to follow. But she would have still provided higher ratings than the competition airing directly against her – such as a “CBS News Special” on which Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black spoke with correspondents Eric Sevareid and Martin Agronsky on the Bill of Rights.