Directed by Michel Boisrond, Une Parisienne was based on Henri Becque's 1885 play, with the screenplay by Jean Aurel, Jacques Emmanuel and Michel Boisrond, from an adaptation of an original scenario by Annette Wademant and Aurel. Une Parisienne told the story of Brigitte Laurier, the flirty daughter of a French prime minister, who makes her husband (Vidal) jealous by having a fling with a visiting prince (Boyer). Also in the cast were Madeleine Lebeau - best known as Rick's girlfriend, Yvonne, in Casablanca (1942), Noel Roquevert, Fernand Sardou and Claire Maurier.
Une Parisienne was filmed at various locations throughout France, including Orly airport, and a car chase shot on the Champs-Élysées, with interiors at Billancourt's Paris studios. It was a multi-production by Les Films Ariane, Filmsonor, Cinétel and Rizzoli Film, and released through United Artists in the United States the following year. The film's start was delayed for several weeks before it went into production because Brigitte Bardot came down with the measles. Bardot was only twenty-three, but she had already appeared in many films and was an international star when Une Parisienne was made, thanks to films like And God Created Woman (1956). Boyer had been in films for as long as Bardot had been alive, but he recognized her talent, and praised it to journalists, calling her "une vraie vedette" (a real star). Bardot had been played up in the press and hounded by paparazzi, but Boyer told American journalists that the scandalous stories written about Bardot were "obviously written by writers who have never met her. They are ridiculously untrue." Bardot, Boyer claimed, was afraid of making her American debut because she didn't want to be typecast as a sexpot. Boyer found Bardot to be well mannered and shy, and relations between the two were cordial on the set. When asked about his own reputation for playing "great lovers," Boyer, then fifty-seven, said, "I never liked that reputation, and at my age I can't live up to it."
When it was released in France on December 16, 1957, director and film critic Francois Truffaut wrote that while he liked director Boisrond, writer Wademant and Boyer, and could "tolerate" Henri Vidal, he knew the film would "bring nothing new to the French cinema, no truth of any sort, only fine costumes, uniforms, even dresses, probably a sumptuous ball and glittering decors. I'll be delighted if, thanks to the impermeability of Brigitte Bardot - her lack of sophistication and refusal of convention - a few false notes slip into this concert." When the film was released in the United States on July 30, 1958, critics agreed with Truffaut that it was a fluffy little film. Dick Gunderson wrote in his review that "There's precious little to say about the plot of this movie. One thing's certain: It'll never win the drama critics award. [..] Despite the opportunity, the movie misses being cheap, an easy trap for a bedroom farce. Instead it's laughable, watchable and occasionally clever."
SOURCES:
Bacon, James "Bardot Tales Ridiculous, Says Boyer" Reading Eagle 5 Sept 58
Chassagnard, Guy Charles Boyer, Profession: Acteur
Crisp, C.G. The Classic French Cinema
Goble, Alan The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film
Gunderson, Dick "Bardot's Movie's Assets Won't Pull Any Prize" The Spokesman-Review 11 Sep 58
The Internet Movie Database
Kilgallen, Dorothy "The Voice of Broadway" The Kentucky New Era 1 Apr 57
Singer, Barnett Brigitte Bardot: A Biography
By Lorraine LoBianco
