Brightest Young Things

Not everyone can afford to hobnob with the global elite on the Cote d’Azur, but after seeing these films and attending BYT’s French Riviera Camp on Saturday, you won’t need to.

In an age where you can play tennis on your Wii, kill Nazis on your X-box, and have a bustling social life on your laptop, why do you need to leave your house to see the world? Travel is so passé, so rather than schlepping to France to see the glamorous Cote d’Azur, just stay put, watch these films, and follow our advice to best simulate your Ultimate-Sit-On-Your-Ass-Riviera-Get-Away. Couple this list with BYT’s French Riviera Camp and you’ve got yourself the comprehensive experience. Cannes you dig it?

To Catch a Thief (1955)- No discussion of the films of the Cote d’Azur is complete without some mention of Grace Kelly. The Hollywood starlet’s real life became a fairytale when she became a princess after marrying Prince Rainier III of Monaco, whom she met while filming “To Catch a Thief” in the Riviera. In the film, Cary Grant plays an ex-jewel thief who goes back on the lam when a copycat’s robberies point the long arm of the law back to him. Kelly plays the wealthy owner of some of the Riviera’s most valuable jewels, and a love affair ensues as Grant desperately tries to catch the real thief in order to clear his name. In true Riviera fashion, the film is markedly more lighthearted than other Hitchcock fare, but no less entertaining. On a darker note, the film is Grace Kelly’s last with Hitchcock. Years after quitting acting at a mere twenty-six to focus on being a freaking princess, Kelly died tragically in a car crash in the Riviera. The film’s sweeping, panoramic shots of Kelly and Grant driving on the Riviera’s switchback roads is a haunting reminder of the accident.

Best enjoyed...wearing a diamond tiara and holding a ruby scepter, just like a real princess. If those items aren’t readily available, just get really drunk and light fireworks, in honor of the famous love scene in “To Catch A Thief” where sparks literally fly between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly (BYT does not take responsibility for limbs lost in drunken recreations of the aforementioned scene).

And God Created Woman (1956)-- Fortunately for the young men watching this movie, God also created locks for doors and tissues. Brigitte Bardot plays a “demon driven temptress” (a quote directly from the original trailer) in a breakout role that revolutionized sex on screen for American audiences. The film opens to the silhouette of Bardot tanning nude behind a white sheet and only gets sexier from there, most notably, when she mambos so hard her dress comes open, revealing her inviting black panties. Eh, so what if she’s a geriatric xenophobic, homophobic, racist in real life. There are worse things? Right? Oh well, probably not. Regardless, the film put Brigitte Bardot on the international map, and while St. Tropez was a popular vacation spot for Europeans, it helped make the town synonymous with sensual decadence for Americans as well (and thank God, or else where would our best and brightest go to make sex tapes?).

Best enjoyed...(for boys) wearing compression shorts with company to avoid embarrassment, because even writing about this movie is giving me a blood rush. If you’re alone, have at it (Masturbation joke #2...Score!). (For girls)... with a pad and pen, because this movie is Treating Guys Like Shit 101...if you’re into that sort of thing.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)-- Thievery is a recurring theme amongst films set in the Riviera, possibly because a lot of the occupants can afford to be robbed. Steve Martin and Michael Caine team up to play two talented con artists who wind up in the resort town Beaumont-sur-Mer... but the town isn’t big enough for the both of them. While the film is pretty predictable, it’s also pretty hilarious, as Martin and Caine’s characters are perpetually trying to one-up each other and ultimately (spoiler alert) end up getting duped by one of their victims.

Best enjoyed... in white chinos and a fedora, if you’re a fan of Martin, or a suit and a pencil thin, steel wool ‘stache if you prefer the more erudite Caine. A good “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels drinking game”: Start with a case of Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe’s. Drink every time a new woman is introduced, an outrageous lie is told, a new accent is used, and the guys change their outfits.

Diamonds are Forever (1971)/ Never Say Never Again (1983) / Goldeneye (1995)- Bondage in the Riviera! Whether he’s gambling at the Casino de Monte Carlo in Monaco, popping a wheelie on a crotch-rocket on the Villefranche-sur-Mer, or choking a woman with a bikini on Le Cap D’Antibes, double-oh-seven seems to be a staple of the South of France. Although only three of the twenty two Bond films feature scenes in the Riviera and none take place entirely in the region, I always imagine the real James Bond vacationing in Cote d’Azur, that is, when he’s not criminal wrangling and bangaranging. Real talk, I just wanted to include a bondage joke in this article.

Best enjoyed... wearing a black tuxedo, wielding a wrist mounted dart gun, and drinking a vodka martini, shaken not stirred.

Let us know what some of your other riviera favorites are, and see you all tomorrow!