In 1949, French director Marc Allegret was planning a film based on a script by his young assistant, Roger Vadim. The two men had seen a photo of a teenage model in Elle magazine whom they agreed would be ideal for the leading role, and Allegret offered her a screen test. The test was a success, and Vadim and the 15-year old Brigitte Bardot quickly fell in love. But the film was never made, and Bardot's bourgeois parents insisted that the young couple wait until she was 18 to marry. In 1952, the couple finally wed (Allegret was the best man at their wedding), and Bardot made her film debut that same year.

En Effeuillant la marguerite (Plucking the Daisy, 1956), was Bardot's 16th film in four years, her second one directed by Allegret, and the second film written for her by Vadim. It's a typical French romantic comedy (although the ads in France touted it as "Une comedie Francaise de style Americain!"), complete with a meet-cute on a train, and plenty of loving shots of Bardot's pert behind. Bardot plays saucy but innocent Agnes, who has anonymously written a scandalous novel exposing the affairs of the residents of her provincial home town. Her outraged father, a pompous general, tries to ship her off to a convent, but at the last minute she jumps on a Paris-bound train, where she meets and falls for a womanizing journalist (Daniel Gelin). In Paris, many complications and misunderstandings ensue, including the selling of a Balzac first edition, and a striptease contest (leading to the film's U.S. release titles, Please, Mr. Balzac and Mademoiselle Striptease). Some brief nudity during the strip contest scenes gave the film a notoriety that belied its mildly amusing script. Far more offensive, to modern audiences, is the casual, entitled sexism of the male characters, including Agnes's beloved.

Daniel Gelin, a popular and prolific leading man, was at the peak of his career when he co-starred in Plucking the Daisy. That same year he also had an important role in Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. Gelin appeared in more than 150 films during his long career, working with directors such as Jean Cocteau, Costa-Gavras, Louis Malle and Claude Chabrol.

Plucking the Daisy was typical of the suggestive but innocuous films that Bardot made early in her career, but that career was about to undergo big changes, thanks to her husband. The same year Plucking the Daisy was released, Vadim finally got the chance to write and direct a film of his own, starring Bardot, And God Created Woman. Bardot's frank eroticism made the film an international sensation and established her as the sex symbol for a generation. It also marked the end of her marriage to Vadim, when she fell for her co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant. After their divorce, Bardot and Vadim remained friends, and made several additional films together.

Director: Marc Allegret
Producer: Raymond Eger
Screenplay: Roger Vadim, Marc Allegret
Cinematography: Louis Page
Editor: Suzanne de Troeye
Art Direction: Alexandre Trauner
Music: Paul Misraki
Principal Cast: Brigitte Bardot (Agnes Dumont), Daniel Gelin (Daniel Roy), Robert Hirsch (Roger Vital), Jacques Dumesnil (General Dumont), Luciana Paoluzzi (Sophia), Nadine Tallier (Magali), Darry Cowl (Hubert Dumont)
98 Minutes

by Margarita Landazuri