The little-known French comedy Petroleum Girls (Les Petroleuses, 1971) is a film that is no longer filmed in the XXI century. Two iconic actresses at their best. Claudia Cardinale and Brigitte Bardot are two adventurer girls, the main characters of this curious female adventure western, shot by Christian-Jacques (Fan-Fan Tulip, Black Tulip). An interesting production idea is to contrast two atomic bombs, BB and CC, the first at the head of a gang of girls (her sisters), the second ruling over a group of overgrown boys (her brothers)!
Claudia Cardinale has already starred with Sergio Leone in the western “Once upon a Time in the Wild West” and, being a star, demanded that Brigitte Bardot become her partner in the film. Claudia sat well in the saddle and teased Bardot, not missing an opportunity to make fun of her a little, and create an unsafe situation with her horse, just like in the movie. In the English version, the western was called The Legend of Frenchie King, where Frenchy King is the heroine of Brigitte Bardot, posing as a man, the leader of a gang of girls.
The action takes place in 1888 in the state of Texas in the town of Boujival Junction, a small French enclave in the fantastic Wild West, where everyone walks in national costumes, in curlers and couches, and drinks Beaujolais only from the “salon from France” – masking a traditional western, depicting it with French charm and taste for entertainment, for 30-summer day of the city arranging bicycle races. To Michael J. Fox. Pollard from “Bonnie and Clyde” was given the role of the only American in town, a sheriff with a tender heart, over whom these ladies and even his own horse do not stop joking.
Everyone breaks the comedy, just fooling around. But there is no vulgarity, everything is decent. Maria’s non-independent Saracen brothers all fell for Louise’s independent sisters. It’s just like in a fairy tale, at the end of everything under the crown. They are all just nice to look at, beautiful girls, a stunning mischievous Cardinale with an unbuttoned shirt and an unchanging neckline – a tanned body, white teeth and a ringing laugh, and a Bardo that takes not a neckline, but the pressure of a blonde with a smile with a signature gap.
Les Pétroleuses was filmed after the sexual revolution of 1968, and this movie made it possible to embody the new trends of the time. There are strong women shooting on horseback and fighting with their bare hands, proudly flaunting their breasts in front of a distraught, befuddled male population, in one episode turned into naked and hairless bodies lined up on a platform. Les Pétroleuses depicts an inversion: first of all, gender, since women create laws here, and men fail in their marriage proposals, however, to a very nice ending.
The heroines demonstrate an audacity reminiscent of the archetype of modern French women. The title Les Petroleuses invokes the historical intertext of 100 years ago: the legendary female arsonists of the Paris Commune of 1871. Thus, the film is a free platform for historical mystification, where irony thrives unrestrainedly, where cliches accumulate only to be discarded better as skirts fall and masks rise. Despite budgetary and aesthetic constraints that did not allow the director to fully take responsibility for the project, the film was made soundly and filled with a convincing cast. Deliberately seemingly cheap work that plays precisely on the supposed stupidity, in order in the meantime to crowd out the traditional cinema, where triumphant masculinity has reigned until now.
All this together creates a pleasant entertainment, absolutely devoid of pretensions, adventures in which are accentuated by funny pieces of courage (BBC on a wild horse or a fight between two heroines). Christian-Jacques used humor and his style to create this female western. The peasant image suits Claudia Cardinale more than Brigitte Bardot, but the latter becomes incomparable as soon as she finds the attributes of her gender. Their natural charm makes them irresistible even more than their fighting skills or weapon possession.
It is true that there is no good plot in this French western shot in Almeria. But there is something rare: the duo of Bardot and Cardinale. There is also music by Francis Lai. Those who love these two actresses should definitely watch this movie. This is not even an exploitation genre, but the first fem-western. Surprisingly, these beautiful ladies are still alive, of course, both are already at an advanced age, one is 86, the other is 90. Their beauty was preserved by this film.
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