THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA

The Contessa of the title is a Spanish dancer from the back streets of Madrid, Maria Vargas, who becomes a movie star and sex symbol, Maria d'Amato, before marrying a Count.

The film starts with her funeral so we know right away that this rags-to-riches story isn't going to end well.  This has the effect of reducing the dramatic stakes, and of making me less engaged.

Anyway we then follow Maria's life in a series of flashbacks as told by three narrators who knew her: first, Harry Dawes, who directed her only three films; then Oscar Muldoon, her publicist; and finally her husband.

Harry is played by Humphrey Bogart, and he is the other main character, becoming Maria's closest friend.  He's quite cynical about the movie business, so at first the film seems to be a critique or satire of Hollywood, complete with producers with no aesthetic sense, and insensitive and vacuous PR men.

But when Maria attaches herself to a very rich South American playboy the film's target switches to the international jet set, as seen through the eyes of Oscar, as played by Edmond O'Brien who picked up an Oscar for his trouble. 

Finally the focus shifts again as the film becomes a romantic melodrama, ending with the Count shooting dead both Maria and a casual lover of hers.

So it's a film which is difficult to pin down or categorise, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Maria is played by Ava Gardner, who has no problem playing a beautiful woman to whom all men are attracted.  Despite her fine performance I found it difficult to care very much about her, since the film doesn't give her much of a personality.  Having said that, I did become emotionally engaged towards the end, especially in the wedding night scene when she learns something important about the Count which maybe he should have disclosed earlier. 

She is the 'barefoot' Contessa because it is established early on that she likes to discard her shoes, and so it comes to represent her past which she can never entirely leave behind.  It also links to an important motif throughout the film, of the Cinderella fairy tale.  She is searching for her Prince, the first man whom she can truly love, and she thinks she has met him at last in the form of the Count.

The whole thing is written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, which guarantees that the dialogue is sophisticated and witty, if sometimes overwritten (some early dialogue around the Faustian legend for example had me cringing).  It's also not the most subtle of films - the Cinderella motif is hammered home.

Mankiewicz's languid direction, combined with the glamorous Italian locations, and the superior cinematography and score, make for a luxurious viewing experience if also at times one which may be too languorous for everybody's taste.