Ava Gardner, la gitane d'Hollywood: les années espagnoles de la Comtesse aux Pieds Nus

There is no condescension quite like the left wing European kind toward America, huh? Certainly that is my main take away from this annoyingly dismissive and reductive documentary on Ava Gardner's long residence in Francoist Spain that manages to cast its subject as both victim and victimizer. This allows its director, Sergio Mondelo, to blame Hollywood for Ava's alcoholism and unhappiness while casting her as second only to Ike and Sam Bronston as Yankee enablers of the generalissimo/dictator. And so we have both the Ugly American Film Industry alongside The Ugly (if paradoxically gorgeous) American. I guess what I'm saying is that while Ava should be criticized for palling around with a fascist thug who disappeared and jailed people, for the film maker to see this as the defining moment of her life, as Mondelo does, is kind of silly, in my opinion. Ms. Gardner, like most of us, had many defining moments, several of which (like her relationship with Howard Hughes and her support for Civil Rights and Adlai Stevenson) go unaddressed in this documentary.

It also would have been nice if this hour long look at a Hollywood icon had featured at least one Hollywood talking head rather than the dull parade of French and Spanish film studies nerds we're presented with. Solid C.

PS...Top 5 Ava performances:

5) Mogambo 4) The Hucksters 3) East Side, West Side 2) Sun Also Rises 1) Iguana.

An interesting and harsh portrait of Ava Gardner, from her childhood and teen age as an extraordinarily beautiful but crude rural girl with redneck accent in a tobaco farm until her late days of depressive alcoholism and B-movies. In the middle, there are short-length and troubled love affairs with celebrities, among which Frank Sinatra deserves to be highlighted (I deffinitely would love to watch a narrative film about this couple and their brutal arguments, also addressing her political colluding with status quo after Spanish Civil War and Sinatra's connections with mafia). There are also the years of USA movie productions in Europe, affairs with famous toreros, and luxurious parties among influent people under Francoist dictatorship while living in impoverished Spain, an autocratic regime which soon established close relations with the United States.

I bought her autobiography in 1991 and still use it as a reference from time to time. I do not understand the reason for this horrible production. The commentators lend zero expertise or knowledge of the subject matter. Give me facts and I will form my own opinion. I agree with the previous reviewer about the nasty vindictive nature of this program. Ben Mankiewicz said on TCM that this was the first time ever to air on this channel. I would be surprised if Turner Classic Movies ever showed it again. Awful, just awful.

The documentary's off-screen clips of Ava Gardner are worth seeing, but watch with the audio turned off. You'll avoid the negativity and misrepresentations of the narration; the contradictions, condescension, ageism, misogyny and patronizing of some of the commentators. The moralistic filmmakers seem determined to present Gardner's story as tragic. (The word "tragic" is repeated multiple times to summarize her life at the end.) The filmmakers don't take long in presenting Gardner's delight and feeling of freedom in Spain in the 1950s to a condemnation of her (allegedly) apolitical views in regards to General Franco's dictatorship (although a talking head later says she moved from Spain in the late 1960s to avoid paying taxes to his regime), to yet another cautionary tale of high living leading to alcoholism, old age and loneliness. In other words: You booze, you lose.

Determined to make the worst of things, the filmmakers even go so far as to damn her friends as false. Tell that to John Huston or Roddy McDowall. Additional shame on the filmmakers for including unfavorable off-guard paparazzi photos of Gardner. Maybe such photos taken in public are fair game, but not a grainy shot snapped through a window by a peeping tom.

Although the documentary's focus is Ava Gardner's years in Spain, the film does a disservice to her career by dismissing and overlooking most of her earlier Hollywood film work, other than "The Killers".