Before she got herself a bad haircut and angered many with her political activism, Jane Fonda was a 'sex kitten', appearing in her then-husband Roger Vadim's sci-fi fantasy adaptation of saucy French comic-book Barbarella. Opening with a revealing zero-gravity striptease, and sporting a variety of alluring outfits throughout, Fonda endures a series of silly psychedelic sexcapades as the titular space-babe, in a kitschy adventure that delivers loads of groovy visuals and plenty of titillation.

Tasked with preventing evil scientist Durand-Durand (Milo O'Shea) from conquering Earth with his deadly positronic ray, Barbarella pilots her fur-lined spacecraft to Tau Ceti, the scientist's last known location. Upon leaving her ship, she is attacked by a gang of child twins and their mechanical, silver-fanged dolls. Fortunately, the 'Catchman' Mark Hand (Ugo Tognazzi) comes to her rescue, the lovely lady showing her gratitude by having sex with the lucky guy (who takes off his Wookie costume to reveal that he is just as hairy underneath).

Barbarella then makes her way to the labyrinth that surrounds the city of Sogo, which is ruled over by The Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg). There she meets a blind 'angel' called Pygar (John Philip Law),who flies her to Sogo (after having sex with her in his nest),the city that taste forgot, where she has a run in with the tyrant, is almost killed by budgerigars, meets revolutionary Dildano (David Hemmings),who she has sex with, and finally meets Durand-Durand, who tries to kill her with pleasure by strapping her into his 'Orgasmatron'. Of course, the machine can't handle Barabarella's libido and catches fire. As Sogo burns, Barbarella escapes with Pygar and the Tyrant, leaving the mad scientist to face the Matmos, the lake of slime beneath the city that thrives on evil.

This free-wheeling plot is pure nonsense, serving only to move our heroine from one erotic encounter to another, but the film's impressively gaudy visuals and Fonda's appeal - an irresistible combination of wide-eyed innocence and scorching sexuality - makes the film a tacky, tantalising delight to behold.

Of course it is silly but after a rather dull patch some 30 minutes in we are off on a splendidly colourful and quite delightful flight of fancy with wonderful sets and glowing, swirling colours. Insignificant, of course, and yet it is good to have some souvenir from that period of the sixties when all became so psychedelic and LSD influenced. For a couple of years everything seemed to have an hypnotic swirl of crazy colours and we now look back with wonder at some of the dresses, shoes and advertising. Well, here it all is, non stop plus that free love element, a moment when beautiful young girls could be beautiful young girls and nobody (well, hardly anyone) complained. The now 'responsible' and prissy seeming Jane Fonda just has to glance back at this now and again and be so pleased that someone caught her so beautifully in her heyday.

"Barbarella" is clearly not a very good film. The dialog and writing are dumb and much of the acting is dopey. However, I am sure it has a group of loyal followers, as there is a cheesy badness and sexiness that is pretty infectious. It looks in many ways like a sci-fi sex film made by a group of 13 year-olds--13 year-olds with an incredible sense of set design! It's so strange and silly that it's worth seeing at least once--but you might not want others to know you watched it, as their opinions about your taste might be seriously compromised!

The film begins with the opening credits--and A LOT of Barbarella, as she appears to float naked in her space ship. For 2012, it's relatively tame but for 1968, it was a VERY hot scene--as are many throughout the film. Today, it might not even be seen as mild porn--more like a mild R-rated film. But, in 1968, it was mega-hot--but still quite silly!

Barbarella is instructed by the President of Earth to look for Duran-Duran (also called 'Durand-Durand') and return him to Earth. Along the way, Barbarella has lots of adventures--most of which result in her losing her clothes and/or having sex. Some of the adventures do not--such as the group of crazed kids with flesh-eating dolls--but most everyone (men and women) else seems to want Barbarella and her body. A few of the weird things to look for are the blue bunnies, seeing Marcel Marceau in a SPEAKING role, killer budgies and a killer sex machine! As I said...the sort of stuff teenagers would probably find funny and stimulating! The ending is pretty dumb, but the way--and very anti-climactic. Overall, it's an amazingly stupid film that you can't help but watch because it's so silly and has such super-awesome bizarre sets and costumes (sort of like the products of the top designers of the day if they were on LSD). You just have to see this to believe it...and you still probably won't!