- DVD cover, Bogart and Gardner in Barefoot Contessa - Image courtesy Amazon.com, (C) MGM Home Ent.
Contessa was writer-director Joseph Mankiewicz’s fourth picture following his classic All About Eve. And like that acclaimed Oscar winner, The Barefoot Contessa features some sparkling dialogue and an “insider’s view” of show business.
But it is a decidedly lesser picture.
Ava Gardner Very Sexy in Title Role
Ava Gardner stars as Maria, an earthy dancer who rises from poverty in her native Spain to become an international movie star. The title’s ironic joke is that Maria literally is earthy – she prefers walking barefoot in the dirt to the more “civilized” custom of wearing shoes.
Mankiewicz based the character in part on Rita Hayworth, although there are some surface similarities to Gardner’s own real-life story.
The film’s conscience is embodied by Humphrey Bogart as Harry Dawes, the fading writer-director and recovering alcoholic who’s probably the only person who really understands and appreciates Maria. While not the film’s sole narrator, Dawes' view is the dominant one.
Edmond O'Brien Wins Supporting Actor Oscar For Role
Maria’s fate is clear from the very first scene: her funeral on the Italian Riviera. Maria’s story is told in flashbacks by Dawes and a host of Hollywood archetypes, including the cynical P.R. hack Oscar Muldoon (the well-cast Edmond O’Brien, in an Oscar-winning supporting role), amoral South American millionaire Alberto Bravano (Marius Goring, The Red Shoes, many others) and Maria’s eventual husband, Vicenzo Torlato-Favrini (Rossano Brazzi, four years before South Pacific ).
Warren Stevens – destined to play supporting roles throughout a spotty career (he was an astronaut in Forbidden Planet) – plays a ruthless Howard Hughes-style American financier, Kirk Edwards. His performance is rather one-note; Stevens doesn’t seem to know what to do with Edwards, other than scowl and sulk.
Turning in some nice work are Elizabeth Sellars as Harry’s understanding girlfriend Jerri, Mari Alden as Kirk Edwards’ sycophantic lover and Valentina Cortese as Eleanora, Vincenzo’s perpetually worried sister.
A "Hollywood Movie" Without Hollywood -- or Moviemaking For That Matter
This is a backstage Hollywood story ironically devoid of any scenes depicting actual moviemaking. Maria’s stardom develops off-camera; we never even see her knockout screen test. The closest we come to any scenes representing the movies – is the London premiere of Maria’s debut film.
Rather, The Barefoot Contessa is a portrait of the emerging 1950s jet set and a reflection on dreams, ambition, fame and the kind of corruptibility that comes with money.
In that respect, it has aged well, because all the themes it tackles remain relevant today.
Joseph Mankiewicz' Dialogue Uneven in The Barefoot Contessa
It’s also a very talky film. Few things develop visually, with the exception of the moment when Brazzi’s Count Torlato-Favrini first spies Maria as she dances with gypsies -- and instantly falls for her.
Famous for his dialogue in films like All About Eve (“Fasten your safety belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night”), in Contessa, Mankiewicz stumbles early on. To wit:
Maria: Mr. Dawes, do you think really think I could be a star?
Dawes: Well, there’s one phrase I’ve always avoided like the plague, because it never worked out. With you, I think it would. You…couldn’t miss.
Still, elsewhere the Mankiewicz dialogue sparkles:
Bravano: To make a hundred dollars into a hundred and ten dollars - this is work. To make a hundred million into a hundred and ten million, this is inevitable.
Drunken blonde: [of Maria] She hasn't even got what I've got.
Jerri: What she's got you couldn't spell -- and what you've got, you used to have.
The Barefoot Contessa Valuable As Window on 1950s Culture
In general, Ava Gardner was known more for her beauty than her acting, and this assessment applies to Contessa. Still, she’s not bad in the role. However, Ava’s Spanish accent is unconvincing and maybe she realized that too, because by the third act, it mostly has vanished.
Bogart’s bemused world-weary schtick is a little more problematic; he seems to be going through the motions on this, the sixth-last film of his career.
The Barefoot Contessa is a time capsule on the changing world culture of the 1950s. It spotlights independent moviemaking at a time when studio power was waning; it’s also about the internationalization of movies and movie stars.
And it’s about a reluctant, an often infuriating star who just wants to be a simple girl with her feet in the dirt.
Mankiewicz has done better with other “insider” movies. It's hard to find people here to care about or to root for. But among backstage stories, it’s worth a look, to gauge how the cult of celebrity has developed since the postwar years.
The film is available on DVD from retailers including Movies Unlimited.
Barry M. Grey - Barry M. Grey is a non-fiction TV writer-producer in Los Angeles whose love of classic film borders on the dangerously obsessive.
