The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

Sadly Over-hyped

Disturbing yet enthralling

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Was really intrigued into seeing 'The Barefoot Contessa'. Joseph L Mankiewicz was responsible for 'All About Eve', which is one of my all time favourite films, and when you have the likes of Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart and Edmond O'Brien one does expect a lot.'The Barefoot Contessa' was disappointing. It is a long way from an awful film and has several very good things, but with such a talented cast and a director who was really good when he is in his prime it could have been so much more. Can totally see the polarising reactions on both sides, while 'The Barefoot Contessa' has a good deal to admire (more so than has been given credit for) it is not going to appeal, and has not appealed, to everybody. 1954 saw some great films, 'Rear Window', 'On the Waterfront', 'A Star is Born', 'Sabrina', 'Dial M for Murder', 'White Christmas' and '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea', 'The Barefoot Contessa' to me just isn't in the same league.Starting with what is good about 'The Barefoot Contessa', it looks great visually with beautiful autumnal cinematography and sumptuous costumes and settings, the very meaning of extravagant. The music score from Mario Nascimbene is lush and subtly done. There are some cracking lines and there is evidence of sincerity. Was very surprised at how daring and ahead of its time it was.Ava Gardner lives up to her glamorous "the world's most beautiful animal" image and character and is positively luminous and graceful, she is very much in her prime here. Late-career Humphrey Bogart, rightly regarded as a cultural icon who died far too soon (only three years later), is as commanding as ever and not only the best actor in the cast but also one of the film's strongest elements. Edmond O'Brien is deliciously oily and in his best moments on dynamite form. Warren Stevens is very good too.Rossano Brazzi was the weak link however in the cast, his role has little if anything to it and the only thing Brazzi brings to it is handsome looks, everywhere else he's very wooden and dull. Mankiewicz really is not at his best in the directing, he delivers on the style but elsewhere it's pedestrian and uninspired.His writing fares even weaker, despite some moments of sincerity and cracking lines the acerbic wit that sparkled in 'All About Eve' four years earlier does not come through enough. Most of the film is too talky and rambling, as well as overwrought, flimsy and too rehearsed. The thin and sometimes muddled story does suffer from dull pacing that rarely fires on all cylinders and an overlong length, and feels both overblown as a result of being overwritten and bland due to the lack of depth to the writing and characterisation. Despite the great efforts of the cast the characters are under-explored and don't have much to allow us to connect properly with them.Overall, beautiful but uneven. 5.5-6/10 Bethany Cox

The Barefoot Contessa is one of Ava Gardner's most famous movies, and some say it embodied her real-life escapades, but since I don't like her movies and think she was a pretty terrible person, I don't like it. Humphrey Bogart couldn't even fix it.At the start of the movie, we see the attendants at Ava Gardner's funeral. Four men, Humphrey Bogart, Rossano Brazzi, Edmond O'Brien, and Marius Goring, tell fragments of her life story to the audience in flashback. In a way, it reminds me of The Bad and the Beautiful, where four people tell Kirk Douglas's story in flashbacks—but I love that movie and consider it an insult to compare it to Ava Gardner's film. I don't usually like movies told in flashbacks because the audience isn't permitted to follow a linear story, and The Barefoot Contessa is no exception. I won't spoil the plot, but whatever the audience learns about Ava is anticlimactic and a little boring.Unless you really love Ava Gardner, this isn't a classic I'd recommend watching. Personally, I prefer my Barefoot Contessa on Food Network.

An oddity for a decade prone to fairy tale type movies. After all, the build-up is that of a fairy tale coming true for peasant girl Maria (Gardner). In stages she's lifted from poverty-- first, by a film director who gets her a screen test; then, from a successful test she becomes a successful star; after which, she blossoms into a popular super star. From those heights, however, she unwisely marries a rich man (Goring), who soon proves intolerably abusive. In a ballroom showdown, she's happily rescued by a handsome Prince Charming (Brazzi) who spirits her to his European castle to be married. But there, just as her Cinderella tale seems to be coming true, she finds out her Prince's secret, a word that unfortunately could not be used in 1954. So we're left to infer the problem and the movie's crux.Small wonder the story's told in a series of flashbacks from Maria's graveyard funeral. Thus, interest is aroused from the start as to why a girl so young and wealthy could possibly be dead. On my view, the movie's really a modern fairy tale turned into a tragedy. For example, consider a recurring theme; namely, Maria's constant attachment to bare feet over shoes. That I take as an underlying desire for a naturalness stripped of the kind of social pretensions shoe styles can convey. Thus, her struggle, on this view, is really between the stark reality of feet and the societal contrivance of shoes. Extrapolated a bit, it can also convey the importance of foundations to a person's well-being. Perhaps that's why she seems reluctant to accept her fairy tale climb-- it goes against a deeper instinct. Be that as it may, in view of the ending, it's too bad she doesn't stick with instinct rather than temptation.All in all, the indie production was a biggie of that year, featuring two marquee stars, a lavish production, and Hollywood honcho Mankiewicz in charge. Unsurprisingly, it all led to some Oscar go-rounds. Never mind that Hollywood doesn't come off looking very good in the persons of tyrannical producer (Stevens) and sycophantic public relations man (O'Brien). There's still enough gloss, travelogues, and close-ups of the beauteous Gardner to keep us diverted. Happily, Bogie gets his trademark role as a cynical observer, while Gardner gets to show she's more than a pretty face, along with O'Brien who bathes in fast-talking. Not much really happens besides character development. So, credit director Mankiewicz for keeping things moving. Though dated, the movie's worth catching up with; that is, if you can stand the taboo word "impotence", which the 1954 movie obviously couldn't.

When a movie opens with the funeral of the main character, you know you are in for a long, sad ride. Really long, in this case – the movie clocks in at two hours. With the inevitability of a tragic death fixed at the opening, it's hard not to see the entire film through filter of sadness.The Barefoot Contessa follows the rise, perpetual dissatisfaction and demise of a beautiful, charismatic Maria Vargas, a young Spanish woman played by Ava Gardner. A powerful wall street type turned movie backer wants her to be the new face and visits her in her small village, dragging along a PR man, the director and washed up actress. There are two narrators – a little confusing at times – but most of the movie is relayed from the perspective of Humphrey Bogart, a sad sack, world weary writer/director (in a mythical time when writers were as famous as the stars). He was great, as always, and Gardner was good but lacked oomph for someone supposedly able to set the world on fire.I think that was due mainly to the direction, she wasn't allowed to sparkle; quite the opposite, she was prohibited from shining. The odd thing about the movie is how much of her action happened off screen. When Hollywood arrives in her village to see her dance, we only see her hands clicking castanets. When she has a screen test which dazzles jaded directors and, we don't see it. When she makes three movies, we never see her on set or even get a hint of what she was like in the movies. When she rises to the top of the celebrity mountain with legions of adoring fans, we don't see them or even understand why. In fact, all she really does is mope around and wait for her demise. The only time she is allowed to partially captivate is during an odd scene where she hand-dances at a Gypsy camp.It must have been intentional, and added to the doomed mood throughout. Instead of the details, instead of watching a small town girl lose her innocence (though she always seemed quite confident, self-possessed and resigned to her fate) we see the outcomes -- cruel people growing crueler, the dehumanizing effect of fame and redemption for a few characters (Bogart's character finds true love after three marriages and manages to kick the booze habit for good). Mostly we see barefoot Ava, drifting through life, never able to let herself be happy, or fall in love, or enjoy success, or even laugh. And we are never really able to understand why. The opening shot shows that she is doomed and I was never able to shake that inevitability throughout.Still well worth the time.-- www.cowboyandvampire.come --