Plucking the Daisy (French title: En effeuillant la marguerite) is a 1956 French comedy film directed by Marc Allégret.
Agnès Dumont (Brigitte Bardot) is discovered by her father, a highly respectable general, to be an erotic novelist. He plans to send her to boarding school as punishment, but instead she goes to Paris to live with her brother. On the train there, she meets Daniel Roy (Daniel Gélin), whom she falls in love with. At her brother's place, Agnès mistakenly sells a valuable book by Balzac and uses the money to buy a purse, so she is forced to earn the money back, which she decides to do by entering a striptease contest. She disguises herself so as to not be recognized, resulting in Daniel falling for the mysterious girl, much to Agnès' chagrin.
Tropes:
- Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: When Agnès tries to sleep with Daniel, he can't do so because he loves and respects her, while admitting he would sleep with Agnès' secret alter ego, the stripper Sophia, in the blink of an eye.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Agnès and Hubert want to be a writer and a painter respectively, but their father wants no artists in the family. So he tries to send the former to a convent to straighten her up and disowns the latter. He changes his tune when they send (false) news that they're being successful, decides his children are geniuses after all and forces his younger son to take up the violin.
- Hypocritical Humor: Hubert, in his capacity as a museum guide, will often tell visitors not to touch the artifacts or smoke in the premises, but he's doing those exact things at the same time.
- I Have No Son!: General Dumont disowned his son Hubert after he left for Paris to become an artist.
- Locked Away in a Monastery: Agnès' father is very unamused at her writing aspirations and sends her to a convent as punishment. Agnès will have none of that and escapes to Paris instead.
- Pen Name: Agnès wrote a scandalous novel under the pen name of A.D., which are simply her initials.
- Shipper on Deck: General Dumont is very approving of Daniel marrying Agnès in the end, mostly because it means he no longer has to fret about her since someone else will be keeping her in line.
- Starving Artist: Agnès' brother Hubert moved to Paris to become a painter. Agnès thinks he is rich, but the truth is he is quite poor and works as a museum guide to pay the bills.
- Two-Person Love Triangle: Agnès enters a striptease contest to make money quickly, but when she learns Daniel is covering the contest for a magazine, she disguises herself with a mask and a wig and adopts the name Sophia. This leads to complications when Daniel becomes interested in the mysterious Sophia.
- What's He Got That I Ain't Got?!: Agnès' boyfriend becomes interested in the mysterious Sophia. At one point, Agnès exclaims: "What does she have that I don't?" A valid question, given Agnès and Sophia are one and the same.
- You Can Leave Your Hat On: Agnès performs in an amateur strip contest to earn money to pay for a rare book she mistakenly sold. Agnès' performance is mostly tease but the strip performed by the contestant just before her (in the uncensored version) goes all the way to full nudity.
