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The Barefoot Contessa
1954 Drama / Romance
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Summary
At the funeral of Maria Vargas, the men who fashioned her into a myth
remember their part in her tragic life. Burned out film director
Harry Dawes recalls how he went to Spain with his rich but artistically
ignorant film producer Kirk Edwards to persuade the unknown Maria, a
cabaret dancer, to take up a career in the movie business. Three
films was all it took to make Maria a screen goddess but, at the height
of her success, she decided to give it all up and marry an Italian
count. After a lifetime looking for happiness, she finally found
it – or so it seemed...
Critique
Joseph L. Mankiewicz followed his magnificent satire on Broadway All About Eve (1950) with this
equally scathing depiction of Hollywood. A twisted
reinterpretation of the fairy tale Cinderella, the film shows how a good
woman of humble origins and romantic ideals falls prey to the
machinations of film directors, producers and playboys who cynically
exploit her whilst seeming to fulfil her emotional needs.
The film is stylishly shot in Technicolor (by the great cinematographer
Jack Cardiff) and is effective at conveying the brutality and
shallowness of the moviemaking industry, but also has some noticeable
flaws. The quality of the performances not withstanding – Bogart makes a very convincing jaded filmmaker and Gardner is simply stunning – most of the characters in the film are highly caricatured. It could be argued that this is inevitable in a satirical drama, but the predictable way in which the characters act and speak does jar somewhat. The intensely lyrical last third of the film makes up for the emotional stiltedness and excessive verbosity of the first two-thirds, and the understated poignancy of the tragic ending has a much greater impact than expected. © James Travers 2008 To buy this film:    More selected DVDs... For World Cinema on DVD...
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