Imagine, for a moment, that a town in the American Old West was founded by and for French people, and that two of the sexiest women in modern times were rivals for control of that town.  In Les Petroleuses, Frenchie (Brigitte Bardot) and Maria (Claudia Cardinale) are at war over an oil lease. Maria and her gang of train-robbing brothers got a poor haul on their last robbery.  The only thing they found was one measly case with a geological map indicating that a nearby farm was a likely oil-drilling site.  It's too bad for Maria that Frenchie has the deed to the farm.

While the two of them feud over this and other issues, the bumbling local sheriff is desperately trying to learn French, so that he can woo one of these extraordinary dames.  This film sounds as though it was intended as a comedy, but it was made as a perfectly straightforward, serious Western.