The Barefoot Contessa

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.