Lively but stupid French-Italian co-production in French and Spanish has a wealthy gentleman in Spain possibly looking for a mistress after his wife becomes paralyzed, but getting more than he bargained for after falling madly in love with a shapely village girl who treats him indifferently. Story of a woman's power over a smitten man is an unhappy venture from start to finish. Bardot, freed from her marriage to Roger Vadim by this point, seems to be repeating herself (she dances a fiery Flamenco and gets to show off her ample figure, and that's about it). Spotty adaptation of Pierre Louÿs's novel (previously filmed in 1935 with Marlene Dietrich as "The Devil is a Woman" and reworked in 1977 as "That Obscure Object of Desire") has been left stretched and beleaguered by its four screenwriters, including director Julien Duvivier, with whom Bardot had an unhappy working relationship. * from ****
Review of The Female
