The early fifties saw several excellent films made in Hollywood about Hollywood itself, such as "Sunset Boulevard", "Singin' in the Rain" and "The Bad and the Beautiful". "The Barefoot Contessa" also falls into this category. The main female character, Maria Vargas, is a famous actress and the leading male one, Harry Dawes, is a veteran director and screenwriter, although the film does not deal with the technicalities of movie-making quite as much as, say, "The Bad and the Beautiful". The emphasis is more on Maria's private life than on her professional career, and we never see any clips from her films.
The film begins with a scene set at Maria's funeral, with the main story told in flashback. It follows the normal structure of the "woman's picture", which was a popular genre in the forties and fifties. Such films were primarily aimed at a female audience and generally had a strong female figure as their leading character. The plot revolved around this female character and her life and loves, with male characters being defined in terms of their relationship to her.
Maria becomes a Hollywood star after she is discovered dancing in a Spanish night club story by Kirk Edwards, a business tycoon turned film producer. Her story is narrated by three of the men in her life- Harry, who becomes her friend but not her lover (he is happily married), Oscar Muldoon, a publicist working for Edwards, and Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini, the Italian Count who becomes her husband. (The title derives from the title Maria acquires on her marriage and the fact that she likes to dance barefoot). Another important character is Maria's lover Alberto Bravano, a wealthy Latin American playboy
As with "The Bad and the Beautiful" there has been a lot of speculation as to whether any of the characters were based on real-life individuals. (Howard Hughes, for example, has been suggested as the model for Edwards and Rita Hayworth for Maria). I suspect, however, that Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who acted as both writer and director of the film, would have been too cautious to risk upsetting any of his Hollywood colleagues by basing his characters too obviously on any living individual, and the studio would not have wanted to risk a possible libel suit. Certainly, one can always find significant differences between the characters and those individuals upon whom they were supposedly based; Hughes, for example, may have had his faults, but he had a real passion for film- making, unlike Edwards who has only moved into the industry because he sees it as a money-making opportunity.
1954 was a vintage year for Humphrey Bogart, as it was the year when he made three of his finest films, this one, "Sabrina" and "The Caine Mutiny". In his early days as a major star, he tended to specialise in a few genres- gangster pictures, films noirs, war films and Westerns, generally as a tough guy or action hero. In the last few years of his life, however- he was to die less than three years after completing "The Barefoot Contessa"- he was to extend his range, into comedy ("We're No Angels"), romantic comedy ("Sabrina") and into playing flawed, emotionally vulnerable characters ("The Caine Mutiny", "The Left Hand of God"). Harry Dawes is in some ways, such as his world-weary cynicism, a typical Bogart character, but in others he too represents a new departure for the actor. Although Harry is the leading role- he has more screen time than any other male character- he is (unlike most Bogart characters) a bystander, someone who comments on the action rather than participating directly in it. Edwards, Bravano and the Count all play much more active roles in Maria's life.
This was one of a number of films- others include "The Killers" and "Bhowani Junction"- which show that Ava Gardner deserves to be remembered as a serious actress, not just as a sex symbol. Maria can be seen as a tragic heroine- not in the sense that she is destroyed by a flaw in her character but in the sense that she falls victim to a cruel irony of fate; in a desperate attempt to please the one man whom she truly loves she only succeeds in provoking his anger and jealousy.
I have always had a high regard for this film, so I am surprised at some of the negative comments on this board. One reviewer compares it to a soap opera, but few soap operas can call upon actors as gifted as Humphrey Bogart, or Edmond O'Brien, or have dialogue as witty and literate as that written by Mankiewicz. Soap operas tend to be excessively melodramatic, but this is not the case with "The Barefoot Contessa"; much of the film, particularly in the first half, is taken up with dialogue rather than physical action, and potentially melodramatic elements in the plot, such as the trial of Maria's father for the murder of her mother, tend to be played in a low-key manner. Only at the end, when we learn the manner of Maria's tragic death and the reason for it, does strong emotion predominate, and it would have been ridiculous to have played these scenes in anything other than an emotional way.
This is not perhaps Mankiewicz's finest film- in my view that is probably "All About Eve", another film with an actress at its centre. It is, however, a fine study of the rise and fall of a twentieth-century goddess. 8/10.
The film begins with a scene set at Maria's funeral, with the main story told in flashback. It follows the normal structure of the "woman's picture", which was a popular genre in the forties and fifties. Such films were primarily aimed at a female audience and generally had a strong female figure as their leading character. The plot revolved around this female character and her life and loves, with male characters being defined in terms of their relationship to her.
Maria becomes a Hollywood star after she is discovered dancing in a Spanish night club story by Kirk Edwards, a business tycoon turned film producer. Her story is narrated by three of the men in her life- Harry, who becomes her friend but not her lover (he is happily married), Oscar Muldoon, a publicist working for Edwards, and Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini, the Italian Count who becomes her husband. (The title derives from the title Maria acquires on her marriage and the fact that she likes to dance barefoot). Another important character is Maria's lover Alberto Bravano, a wealthy Latin American playboy
As with "The Bad and the Beautiful" there has been a lot of speculation as to whether any of the characters were based on real-life individuals. (Howard Hughes, for example, has been suggested as the model for Edwards and Rita Hayworth for Maria). I suspect, however, that Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who acted as both writer and director of the film, would have been too cautious to risk upsetting any of his Hollywood colleagues by basing his characters too obviously on any living individual, and the studio would not have wanted to risk a possible libel suit. Certainly, one can always find significant differences between the characters and those individuals upon whom they were supposedly based; Hughes, for example, may have had his faults, but he had a real passion for film- making, unlike Edwards who has only moved into the industry because he sees it as a money-making opportunity.
1954 was a vintage year for Humphrey Bogart, as it was the year when he made three of his finest films, this one, "Sabrina" and "The Caine Mutiny". In his early days as a major star, he tended to specialise in a few genres- gangster pictures, films noirs, war films and Westerns, generally as a tough guy or action hero. In the last few years of his life, however- he was to die less than three years after completing "The Barefoot Contessa"- he was to extend his range, into comedy ("We're No Angels"), romantic comedy ("Sabrina") and into playing flawed, emotionally vulnerable characters ("The Caine Mutiny", "The Left Hand of God"). Harry Dawes is in some ways, such as his world-weary cynicism, a typical Bogart character, but in others he too represents a new departure for the actor. Although Harry is the leading role- he has more screen time than any other male character- he is (unlike most Bogart characters) a bystander, someone who comments on the action rather than participating directly in it. Edwards, Bravano and the Count all play much more active roles in Maria's life.
This was one of a number of films- others include "The Killers" and "Bhowani Junction"- which show that Ava Gardner deserves to be remembered as a serious actress, not just as a sex symbol. Maria can be seen as a tragic heroine- not in the sense that she is destroyed by a flaw in her character but in the sense that she falls victim to a cruel irony of fate; in a desperate attempt to please the one man whom she truly loves she only succeeds in provoking his anger and jealousy.
I have always had a high regard for this film, so I am surprised at some of the negative comments on this board. One reviewer compares it to a soap opera, but few soap operas can call upon actors as gifted as Humphrey Bogart, or Edmond O'Brien, or have dialogue as witty and literate as that written by Mankiewicz. Soap operas tend to be excessively melodramatic, but this is not the case with "The Barefoot Contessa"; much of the film, particularly in the first half, is taken up with dialogue rather than physical action, and potentially melodramatic elements in the plot, such as the trial of Maria's father for the murder of her mother, tend to be played in a low-key manner. Only at the end, when we learn the manner of Maria's tragic death and the reason for it, does strong emotion predominate, and it would have been ridiculous to have played these scenes in anything other than an emotional way.
This is not perhaps Mankiewicz's finest film- in my view that is probably "All About Eve", another film with an actress at its centre. It is, however, a fine study of the rise and fall of a twentieth-century goddess. 8/10.