Love on a Pillow (1962)

Memorable, crazy movie

Just perfect...

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Brigitte Bardot plays a very competent and rich woman in this film. Yet, despite this, she manages to become putty in the hands of a rather self-absorbed and annoying man. While this seemed really unlikely, so is real life and there no doubt many people who fall for the absolute worst partner. It's annoying...but can happen. And, while the actors play annoying people, they do a good job with what they were given. The only problem is, does the average viewer want to see this sort of film?The film begins with Bardot having a very, very controlled and predictable life. She has a fiancé but there isn't a lot of passion between them. She is content with her lot...but not all that happy.When she travels to meet with lawyers concerning an inheritance that will make her quite rich, she stumbles accidentally into the life of a man who tried to kill himself with sleeping pills. How they met and how the hospital just gave him to her is all very, very difficult to believe--so you'd best suspend belief if you are to continue watching.Once the man is released from the hospital, he follows Bardot--almost like a stalker. But, oddly, instead of running away or telling him to get lost, she falls for this odd and completely amoral and self-absorbed man. Other than the attraction of having some unpredictability and passion in her hum-drum life, it's very, very hard to see why she becomes infatuated with her--especially when he runs hot and cold with her. Many times he does horrible things to try to drive her away...and yet, by the end of the film, you are expected to believe they'll somehow live happily ever after....which is about as likely as politicians balancing a budget!The plot has a lot of problems as you can see above, yet the film still manages to be interesting and quite sexy (despite not really showing anything). As usual, Bardot's character finds 1001 situations where she gets naked (but you see nothing, really) and the acting is good. It's just that the whole thing seems contrived and it's hard to actually like either character. An odd little time-passer.By the way, although Ms. Bardot has a famous reputation as an animal rights advocate, I did enjoy seeing her eating a big hunk of meat (this is not a reference to her male co-star but a real piece of cooked flesh) meat and being rather nasty to her pet goldfish.

While their short-lived marriage was long gone, this is the fourth of five Roger Vadim/Brigitte Bardot collaborations and only the second I've watched myself. After opening in a light comedy vein, this rather scrappy film turns into an unappetizingly ponderous melodrama on the lines of LA DOLCE VITA (1960), complete with a risibly "beat" orgy sequence and a surfeit of pretentious chat; nevertheless, the whole is somewhat redeemed by the attractive Italian locations in its second half and the nice musical score throughout.For what it's worth, it tells of a bourgeois girl (Bardot) – shortly to be married to an unassuming young man – travelling from Paris to Dijon to hear the will of her late aunt, who accidentally stumbles on the suicide attempt of a bohemian, pulp-thriller-loving misanthrope (Robert Hossein) who, upon recovering, literally turns her life upside down. The cast is completed by James Robertson Justice (as Hossein's sculptor friend), Macha Meril (as Robertson's tramp companion) and, in one sequence, Michel Serrault as a notary.In the end, the original title of THE WARRIOR'S REST sounds far more interesting that what's on offer here and the fact that I was misinformed about the film's running time – I thought it was a good 22 minutes shorter! – did not help to earn it much affection from my end. But, then, the sight of Bardot in her prime (and, Vadim being Vadim, in various stages of undress as well) is always welcome...

"Love On a Pillow" is a dubbed French film starring Brigitte Bardot at her most beautiful and alluring. An existentialist writer, artist, and musician from Paris attempts suicide in Dijon. He is saved when a lovely young Parisian girl, in town to claim a substantial inheritance left her by a rich aunt, mistakenly opens his hotel room door and finds him near death from an overdose of sleeping pills. Thereafter, he becomes her responsibility, they fall in love, and his abject alcoholism and stubborn cynicism both torment and liberate her. In the process, we see her transformed from an attractive young woman into a sexy beat hipster, and finally into a ravishing goddess who defines feminine beauty. It is very evident in this film why Bardot was considered one of the most captivating actresses of the early sixties. Particularly toward the end of the movie, there are closeups of her that take your breath away. The film's setting is very interesting, as well -- among artists and jazz musicians in Paris in the early sixties. The score is simple but ethereal. There is one touching scene in a café in Florence where the lovers are momentarily content and at peace. A guitarist approaches their table singing a pretty Italian love ballad. The man appears annoyed, then in a sudden outburst, chases away the musician because "that song has memories." The incident may reveal what is really bothering him. At the conclusion, the film's understated score moves to a poignant crescendo. "Love On a Pillow" is not just a beautiful film. It is easily Bardot's finest effort.

May be you will say that this is spoiler. But it is not at all. It is just the truth. Because I can assure you there is not another way to write about this movie picture. If you are in the mood to become a cretinous man (or woman), see this film. If after some minutes you begin to answering yourself why you are watching this film (except for enjoy Bebé charm, not show at this work, by the way), you can see the movie. It has got the extraordinary capacity of every people and everything inside was infinitely silly. The Repos du guerrier showing at TV is an excellent chance to switch off the tv set and read a book (Gonzalo Amigo's Las crónicas trascendidas, for instance),and learn some good Spanish at same time.