La comtesse aux pieds nus

Four years after the phenomenal All About Eve, Joseph L Manckiewicz moves away from Broadway and lands in Hollywood. Naturally, everything in Hollywood is bound to be louder, more vulgar, more shallow and more expensive and surprisingly less relatable, less credible. Ava Gardner is breathtakingly beautiful and Jack Cardiff photographs her like a goddess but that's no match for any of the exchanges between Bette Davis and Thelma Ritter in All About Eve. Here the soap opera elements dominate the tale. The Italian aristocrats as played by Rossano Brazzi and Valentina Cortese take the story for a ludicrous spin. Josseph L Manckiewicz as a writer and director makes sure the film doesn't become "The Legend Of Lylah Clare" for instance. Humphery Bogart plays the lead and I forgot to mention it. I wonder why. He's wonderful in it but the Oscar went to Edmond O'Brian for his unbearable press agent. Ava Gardner presence transformed this lurid tale into a classic and it's bound to remain so for ever.

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.

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.

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.

Ava Gardner is beautiful Spanish dancer Maria Vargas who is discovered and given a Hollywood contract in "The Barefoot Contessa," also starring Humphrey Bogart, Edmund O'Brien, Rossanno Brazzi, Marius Goring, and Valentina Cortese. Written and directed by Joseph Mankiewicz, the story is supposedly based on Rita Hayworth, who turned down the role. There are some similarities - the Spanish roots, the dancing angle, the studio head who desires her but doesn't get her, a la Harry Cohn, and the great sadness of her life. The famous story about Rita is that her first husband, Edward Judson, was nothing more than a pimp, though he is the man who turned her into a movie star. He demanded that she have sex with Harry Cohn, and Rita refused time and time again. Finally, Judson made a date for himself and Rita to go on a boat trip with Cohn, and Judson cancelled at the last minute, leaving Rita alone with the studio head. She still didn't go to bed with him.

The story begins at Maria's funeral and is told in flashback by the various men who were in her life. Most of the narration is provided by the Bogart character, writer-director Harry Dawes, who had a unique relationship with Maria - he cared for her deeply and was always there to listen to her and advise her. Maria was a woman whose life was lived as a barefoot Cinderella looking for her prince. Harry has a sixth sense about things, and when Maria is about to marry the man she believes to be her prince, Count Torlati-Favrini, Harry starts to worry. He knows that, as is often pointed out in the film, real life is much more erratic than a movie script.

Edmund O'Brien gives a terrific, Oscar-winning performance as a yes man/publicist who does all the talking for the studio head, Kirk Edwards (Warren Stevens). Bogart is excellent, but he does not have a great role; although he has top billing, he doesn't even have the starring role. One suspects he's there for box office pull.

The dialogue has been praised here - Mankiewicz was one of the great dialogue writers, but I found some of the dialogue in this a little pretentious and the pace slow. It's an interesting story, but for me it doesn't compare with "All About Eve" and "Letter to Three Wives" in script or in pace.

The star of the film is Ava Gardner. For this writer, Gardner and Hayworth were ultimate sex symbol/movie stars - gorgeous, sexy, exciting women. Around 32 here and living the wild life she always did, Gardner is breathtaking to look at. After the beginning of the film, she drops the Spanish accent, but she more than makes up for that in presence. Like Lana Turner and Rita Hayworth, she was one of those actresses whose appearance and private life often received more publicity than her actual acting - but Ava could act. There was always something uninhibited, earthy, sexy, and inherently honest about her performances - and she was that way as a woman, too. I highly recommend her autobiography to anyone who hasn't read it.

To see this marvelous cast and especially to see them in something written and directed by a fine artist like Mankiewicz is worth it, even if it's a little flawed. Nobody's perfect.