In her debut as a singer, Maria II accidentally invents striptease, an action that lets the circus achieve great fame.

Preparing to take the capital city, the Marias are captured by Catholic churchmen who fear the disorder of a revolution and want to stop the people from treating the women like saints.

After a bungled attempt to tickle torture them (the Inquisition's equipment is too old to work well) the Marias are rescued by their victorious army.

[W]ith Viva Maria!, which aims at being little more than a fancifully photographed tale of two turn-of-the-century dance-hall girls who cheer up a Latin American revolution, Moreau saw a chance of expressing one of her firmest beliefs.

For inspiration, he instructed Carrière to consider the Gary Cooper – Burt Lancaster relationship in Vera Cruz (1954), which was a favorite Western of the two collaborators.

"[7] Moreau and Bardot became "like two pals in the army" after 16 weeks of principal photography in Mexico,[8] including Texcoco.

[10] Filming was also held up when Bardot fell ill.[11] The dialogue is in English, French, Spanish, and German, depending on the actor.

Time called it a "jaunty but slipshod farce"; "Having saddled himself with an idea that often seems too silly for words, Director Malle rides to the rescue with more anti-state, anti-church, antedated spoofery than he can gracefully handle.

But even the deadly slow stretches are redeemed by cameraman Henri Decaë, whose breathtakingly sophisticated photography is a show in itself, imperceptibly shaded as the action moves from lush Rousseau tropics to the cabaret scenes that exude a smoky golden haze in which Moreau and Bardot appear like creatures of Lautrec or Degas, ineffably alluring.

[15] It was the ninth most popular film of 1965 in France, after The Sucker, Goldfinger, Thunderball, Gendarme in New York, Mary Poppins, Fantomas Unleashed, God's Thunder and The Wise Guys.

[18] The last minute of the movie, depicting the women singing a song in Spanish on stage, was cut after the film's New York premiere.

MGM Technical Services archivist John Kirk was able to restore this final scene to the laserdisc release in 1998.