''The Bear and the Doll'' (french: L'Ours et la Poupée) is a 1970 French

romantic comedy Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a subgenre of comedy and slice of life fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how true love is able to surmount most obstacles. In a typic ...

film directed by

Michel Deville Michel Deville (born 13 April 1931) is a French film director and screenwriter. Deville started his filmmaking career in the late 1950s, paralleling the emergence of the French New Wave directors. He never achieved the level of critical and int ...

, starring

Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a former French actress, singer and model. Famous for portraying sexually emancipated characters with hedonistic lifestyles, she was one of the ...

and

Jean-Pierre Cassel Jean-Pierre Cassel (born Jean-Pierre Crochon; 27 October 1932 – 19 April 2007) was a French actor. Early life Cassel was born Jean-Pierre Crochon in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, the son of Louise-Marguerite (née Fabrègue), an opera sin ...

Premise

Felicia, a high-spirited woman, crashes her car into that of a Gaspard, a conservative musician and single father. Felicia is frustrated that Gaspard does not find her attractive and sets out to seduce him.

Cast

as Felicia *

as Gaspard *

Daniel Ceccaldi Daniel Ceccaldi (25 July 1927 – 27 March 2003) was a French actor. He was born in Meaux, Seine-et-Marne, France. The mild-mannered Daniel Ceccaldi is famous as Claude Jade's father ''Lucien Darbon'' in François Truffaut's movies ''Stolen Kis ...

as Ivan * as Stephane * Patrick Gilles as Titus *

Julien Verdier Julien Verdier (13 January 1910 - 15 July 1999) was a French actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films from 1949 to 1994. Filmography References External links * 1910 births 1999 deaths French male film actors {{Fran ...

as Tabard * Claude Beauthéac as Millot * as Bernard * Olivier Stroh as Arthur * Patricia Darmon as Mariette *

Sabine Haudepin Sabine Haudepin (born 19 October 1955) is a French actress. She has appeared in more than 50 films since 1962. She was born in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France. Filmography References External links * * 1955 births Living people ...

as Julie * as Charlotte * Claude Jetter as hippie girl

Production

The film was inspired by American

screwball comedies Screwball comedy is a subgenre of the romantic comedy genre that became popular during the Great Depression, beginning in the early 1930s and thriving until the early 1940s, that satirizes the traditional love story. It has secondary characteristi ...

of the 1930s and was written with

Catherine Deneuve Catherine Fabienne Dorléac (born 22 October 1943), known professionally as Catherine Deneuve (, , ), is a French actress as well as an occasional singer, model, and producer, considered one of the greatest European actresses. She gained recogni ...

in mind.

Alain Delon Alain Fabien Maurice Marcel Delon (; born 8 November 1935) is a French actor and filmmaker. He was one of Europe's most prominent actors and screen sex symbols in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, he won the César Award for Best Actor for h ...

and

Jean Paul Belmondo Jean-Paul Charles Belmondo (; 9 April 19336 September 2021) was a French actor and producer. Initially associated with the New Wave of the 1960s, he was a major French film star for several decades from the 1960s onward. His best known credits ...

were offered the male lead but turned it down. Filming took place in the summer of 1969.

Reception

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that "the maneuverings are mostly the tactics of coy moviemaking here involving several awful child actors, windshield wipers that comment on the action, a huge but gentle dog, a Siamese cat named Prudhomme, and endless little rages between the lovers that define their real affection... Charm is the ingredient that is in singularly short supply in ''The Bear and the Doll'', largely, I suspect, because Miss Bardot, once a sex kitten, now approaches middle age with all of the grace of a seasoned predator."

References

External links

* *
''The Bear and the Doll''
at Premiere France 1970 films 1970s French-language films 1970 romantic comedy films Films directed by Michel Deville French romantic comedy films 1970s French films {{1970s-comedy-film-stub