Marcel Marceau archive footage - filming Barbarella!

Sur le tournage de Barbarella



Amazing to see more behind the scenes footage of Barbarella. The film starts off with Marceau in the centre of Rome, before showing him made up as Professor Ping on the set of Barbarella's crashed spaceship in the labyrinth.  Thanks to Forgotten Silver for spotting this!

Rare behind the scenes footage of BARBARELLA (1968)

This 1968 featurette would have played in cinemas (and maybe television?) to promote the upcoming release of Barbarella in 1968. What's special about it is that most of it was shot on set from a different angle to the movie camera and features unused takes and special effects - specifically some weird spherical drones that attack Pygar and Barbarella in flight. These were replaced by far more angular dual-cockpit Leathermen craft in the final film.

It also shows Jane Fonda at home with her then husband (and Barbarella's director) Roger Vadim.

This featurette has never been included on any home video release, and would make the perfect addition to a special edition version of the film.

Catch it while it's still on YouTube...

Magnum Photos' BARBARELLA archive

When I first started looking online for new images from the movie Barbarella, most photo agencies were very protective of uploading their archives online, certainly not without huge watermarks across them. It was a surprise to recently discover this wonderful gallery on Magnum Photos' site. In the interview below, photographer David Hurn describes spending a month at Dino De Laurentiis' Rome studios, specifically to cover Barbarella while it was in production in 1967.

Besides being on set during filming, he also visited Jane Fonda at home with her husband/director Roger Vadim, as well as taking the key publicity photos of Fonda in Barbarella's many and various costumes. These iconic images usually represent the film and have been appearing on magazine covers around the world ever since. Certainly they appeared on the cover of Life magazine and Newsweek in advance of the film's release.

See the Magnum Photos Barbarella gallery here...

Here's the brief interview with photographer David Hurn about Barbarella...