Barbarella

Barbarella (1968)

Timing: 1:38 (98 min)

6/10
808

6.269/10
6017

5.9/10
41000

All about film

Video 5

Photo 98

Actors and characters

Release date

1968-10-10

Country

France, Italy, United States

Production

Paramount, Marianne Productions, Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica

Genre

Science Fiction, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy, Action

Budget

$9 000 000

Revenue

$613 285

Website

Director

Roger Vadim

Actors

Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Anita Pallenberg, Marcel Marceau, Claude Dauphin, Milo O’Shea, Véronique Vendell, Serge Marquand, Catherine Chevallier, Marie Therese Chevallier
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Vittorio Bonicelli, Claude Brulé

Producer

Dino De Laurentiis

Operator

Claude Renoir

Composer

Bob Crewe

Artist

Umberto Campagna

Audition

Editing

Victoria Mercanton, Guy Luongo
All team (24)

• The film is based on the comics by Jean-Claude Forest.
• In 2004, the British magazine Film Review conducted a poll regarding the sexiest heroines in science fiction films. Barbarella surpassed all modern beauties.
• The nieces of the Great Tyrant are named Stomoxys and Glossina. These are the names of flies. Stomoxys is a horse fly, and Glossina is the African tsetse fly.
• The popular 1980s band Duran Duran took their name from the villainous scientist in a film. Unfortunately, American radio DJs made mistakes with the name, and the last letter “d” was lost, although this likely didn’t affect the artists’ popularity.
• A romance began between Jane Fonda and Roger Vadim on set, leading to marriage and the birth of their daughter Vanessa. Their marriage lasted eight years.
• Filming took place in Rome at the Dino De Laurentiis Cinematografica Studios.
• Italian actress Virna Lisi was considered as one of the contenders for the role of Barbarella.
• Barbarella's costumes, created by designer Paco Rabanne, were recognized as the most sensual in 1960s cinema and remained on the covers of glossy magazines for a long time.
• The rebel Dildano (David Hemmings) utters the password “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch,” which is the name of a small village in Wales (Great Britain) that entered the Guinness Book of Records as the settlement with the longest name.
• The name of the city of Soho comes from the names of the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
• At the beginning of the film, during the opening credits, the main character is shown floating in zero gravity aboard her spaceship. These shots were filmed as follows: Jane Fonda lay on a large piece of plexiglass with a spaceship depicted on it. The camera was positioned from above, creating the illusion of the main character being in zero gravity.
• Screenwriter Jean-Claude Forest based the main character on Brigitte Bardot. The actress herself was asked to play Barbarella, but she replied that she no longer wanted to play sexualized characters.
• Antonio Sabato was initially cast in the role of Dildano, but was soon replaced by British actor David Hemmings. Photographs from the set survive showing Sabato and Jane Fonda. It was decided that Sabato was too serious for the role, and that an actor was needed who wouldn't leave the audience with that impression.
• It was originally intended that the wings of the character played by John Phillip Law would be completely white. Law himself, a comic book fan since childhood, suggested giving them a brownish tint to resemble the Hawkman character from DC Comics.
• In the scene of the hummingbird attack on Barbarella, kinglets and inseparable birds were also filmed, in addition to hummingbirds. This was because the export of hummingbirds was prohibited. The birds did not behave as the director and screenwriter Roger Vadim had hoped, or as he expected, so he rented a powerful fan to "blow" the birds in the direction of Fonda, whose costume concealed birdseed.
• The nieces of the Great Tyrant are named Stomoxys and Glossina. These are the names of flies. Stomoxys is a horse fly, and Glossina is the African tsetse fly.
• The rebel Dildano (David Hemmings) utters the password “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch”, which is the name of a small village in Wales (United Kingdom) that entered the Guinness Book of Records as the settlement with the longest name.