The Barefoot Contessa

There's a beauty that's discovered and she's a star, the kind of woman who would twist your neck and jar, and there are those who want to own her, with gifts a plenty they can confer, she won't let them through her door, as there's a bar. Harry Dawes becomes a friend and helps her grow, giving advice and wise direction she glows and glows, until one day the magic spells, she meets a Count, it all just gels, there's a proposal, a great big wedding, it's a great show. But the fruits of expectation are not hanging, it's not just hearts who's beats slow down, there is no banging, it all drives the lady nuts, and this might make you cuss and cuss, the deception is extreme, fraudulent planning.

Ava Gardener, what more can you say.

"The Barefoot Contessa" is a greatly underrated film--which is rather surprising, when you consider the amount of talent involved. First, there's the brilliant script by Joe Mankiewicz, who was always at his best when dissecting Hollywood and its denizens. The movie's best scene may be the Hollywood party where Kirk Edwards gets his comeuppance, all booze, boredom and viciousness ("What she's got, you can't spell. And what you've got, you used to have."); although the scenes of the pathetic/glamorous European jet set are also excellent, the way Mankiewicz can create a small line or gesture that delineates an entire character. Really, the only time his touch fails him is toward the end, when Maria meets her Count and things get a bit melodramatic.

Also magnificent is the cinematography by the always-brilliant Jack Cardiff, who invests everything with color-drenched glamour. (Did you know that, along with shooting such visual masterpieces as "Black Narcissus," "The Red Shoes" and "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman," Cardiff was also the cinematogrpaher on "Rambo: First Blood." Yikes.) Edmond O'Brien won a well-deserved Academy Award for his portrayal of the sleazy PR man Oscar Muldoon, managing to bring hints of depth and dimension to a character that could have easily been pure caricature. Another fine, if brief, supporting turn comes from Mari Aldon as Edwards' long-suffering mistress, Myrna (especially her "I'm just a scared tramp" exit line).

Still, what makes this film work is the presence and performance of Ava Gardner. See "The Barefoot Contessa" and you will understand why many have thought her to be the most beautiful woman ever to grace the screen. She is simply breathtaking. Ava's appearance alone is enough to give credibility to Maria Vargas' legendary magnetism--and, without that, the whole film would fail, as it's really just about three men standing around one woman's coffin, wondering that made her tick--but it's her work as an actress that raises the character from beautiful blank to irresistible enigma. Even when her dialogue is a bit trite and soap-opera, she manages to make it believable by making shallowness appear to conceal depth (if you get what I mean), and even does a fine job with the accent. This was the film that earned her the tag "the world's most beautiful animal," but Ava Gardner was much more than that.

If there were any more beautiful women ever walked this planet of our's than Ava Gardner, they must have existed long before Thomas Edison invented the movies. Else they would have been film stars.

Maris Vargas is so different from the real life Ava. She's a silly girl filled with romantic notions and isn't about to give in to anyone unless it's for love.

When we meet her, she's dancing in a Spanish cafe and being eyed by Warren Stevens who's playing Kirk Edwards a not so veiled portrait of Howard Hughes who did in fact have the real Ava on his short list of desirable conquests. Stevens wants to sign her, but also to bed her. One doesn't go without the other.

Screenwriter Harry Dawes played by Humphrey Bogart foils Stevens's plan by having other producers view her test. With a bidding war on, Stevens has to sign Ava on her terms.

Ava doesn't give it up for Stevens and later neither to international playboy Marius Goring. Goring's character is based on Dominican diplomat and legendary lover, Porfirio Rubirosa. That's a story that would rate a film. I can see Antonio Banderas in the part.

She finds herself finally with Italian count Rossano Brazzi and she's sure this is it. But Brazzi has a terrible secret and Ava's efforts to deal with it bring nothing but tragedy.

Humphrey Bogart is top billed, probably as per his contract. But the film is really Ava's show. You won't easily forget her as Maria Vargas.

Edmond O'Brien won a Best Supporting Actor that year as sweaty press agent Oscar Muldoon. His is a profession that inspires cynicism by nature, yet O'Brien proves to have a lot more character than originally thought. O'Brien was up that year against Tom Tully from The Caine Mutiny and Karl Malden, Rod Steiger, and Lee J. Cobb from On the Waterfront. Of course those three split the vote and O'Brien was the lucky beneficiary.

Warren Stevens got his first real notice in The Barefoot Contessa and Marius Goring probably has his best film role of his career as Alberto Bravano the thinly disguised Rubirosa.

It's a sad tale and a cautionary one against silly romantic notions.

This sometimes slow, but interesting, movie has a number of strengths, most notably its characters, writing, and settings. The cast also features some fine performances from Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, and Edmund O'Brien. The 'contessa' herself is undeniably the center of attention, but there is also much more to appreciate.

Gardner does well in personifying Maria, a character with an unusual mix of earthiness and innocence. The symbolic contrast between wearing shoes and going barefoot seems at first to be a rather obvious device, but as the character is developed, it gradually takes on more meaning. Gardner, with a lot of help from the Joseph Mankiewicz script, is convincing amidst Maria's changing fortunes in love and in her career.

Bogart is an ideal choice to play the director, whose own nature has an unexpected combination of world-weariness and integrity. And O'Brien gets one of his very best roles, as a press agent who is largely a parasite, but who turns out to have a couple of interesting things inside of him.

On the surface, the story is a relatively simple tale of a young 'discovery' and of what happens to her after she finds sudden fame. Yet the contrasts and conflicts among the characters, and the contrasts between them and their surroundings, make for plenty of good material. The multiple narratives and the dialogue help considerably in bringing out many of these possibilities. It's an interesting and effective movie that makes its characters come alive, and allows you to spend a couple of hours in their world.

This starts very well, more than a little reminiscent of Sunset Boulevard, with initially Humphrey Bogart as the narrator. This is probably one of Bogart's finest performances, certainly his is a stand out performance in this fairytale romance that can never have a happy end because that is where we come in, in the graveyard. Ava Gardner is good, I don't know about the claims as to her fabulous beauty, Blue Ray does her no favours, exposing the thickness of make-up but her costumes also seem most constricting and unflattering. But she puts in a good performance, especially in her scenes with Bogart. It is just a shame that the promise at the start of some Hollywood expose and an attack upon the bullying and abusive producers comes to nothing and we talk once more of Cinderella. The last act could lose twenty minutes easily and indeed I would remove the entire performance of Valentina Cortese as the Count's sister who does not help at all as we descend into an appalling Hollywood cop out ending. Remains watchable, however, for the first half, Ava's early scenes and the complete Bogart performance only a couple of years before his death.