Viva Maria!

In early twentieth-century Latin America, two women who share the name Maria meet by chance and become partners. One is the daughter of an Irish revolutionary, trained since childhood in explosives and bombs and left to fend for herself after her father's death. The other is a singer touring with a travelling circus. The two join forces as a double act, and a mishap on stage during a performance turns into an unexpected sensation that makes the troupe famous. Their travels soon draw them into a peasant uprising, where they take up the cause of the oppressed rural population against a dictator's troops and a corrupt landowner.

Louis Malle directed and co-wrote the film with Jean-Claude Carrière. It was Malle's fourth feature as director, following A Very Private Affair and preceding Spirits of the Dead. Brigitte Bardot and Jeanne Moreau lead the cast as the two Marias, with Paulette Dubost, Claudio Brook, Carlos López Moctezuma and Poldo Bendandi in supporting roles; twenty-two performers are credited in all. The production was a French-Italian undertaking made for about two million dollars.

The film blends adventure, comedy, romance and western elements. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.3 from roughly forty-four hundred votes, while on TMDB it sits at 6 out of 10 from a much smaller sample. A critics' rating of 5 out of 10, drawn from five reviews, places it below the audience scores.