The Barefoot Contessa [DVD]

Barefoot Contessa was good and the performances were solid. The "looking back" format was interesting, but it broke up the continuity a bit.

A classic Humphrey Bogart movie!

I could not believe how sadly it ended.

A very interesting story told from a few different points of view.I can't believe I never saw this movie since I've always liked both Bogie and Ava.Ava is as beautiful as she always is,, in her older roles as well as her younger ones.But the real surprise for me was Bogart's role as a true gentleman. He was honest and gentle with Ava with no hidden agenda. He was godfather and big brother instead of the lover interest. I was most interested in Bogart's character as he seemed like the only real person in this movie.

Never having seen The Barefoot Contessa, I debated whether it would be worth my time and money to order the blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment's Masters of Cinema Series, a sort of UK counterpart to the Criterion Collection. I'd long heard mixed things about The Barefoot Contessa but, as a member of a cinema discussion group on Facebook, I was assured that it was a masterpiece well worth owning. So, I rolled the dice and took a chance.(By the way, I have an all-regions Blu-ray player so didn't have any problems playing the Region 2 disc).On the so-so side, the Blu-ray looks okay, although I might have expected more from Eureka Entertainment. I'm guessing the print they had to work with was not in the best shape. Even so, the original camerawork by the legendary Jack Cardiff—BIG plus--still accentuates the luxe, jet-set locales of 1950's Europe, as well as the stunning, high-fashion glamor of Ava Gardner, one of the most beautiful women ever to appear in front of a movie camera.That's about the best I can say for the Blu-ray. Save for the commentary from two film historians, there are few special features, to speak of. A booklet included with the disc contains an interesting and informative essay by Glenn Kenny, and goes into some detail about director Joseph L. Manckiewicz's opinion of this film (fairly accurate, I'd say). Really, it's hard to believe Manckiewicz wrote and directed the brilliant and scathing All About Eve (as well as the silly, but entertaining, A Letter to Three Wives).With the exception of Gardner's ravishing screen presence, Jack Cardiff's exquisite cinematography, Sorelle Fontana's costume design and Mario Nascimbene's musical score, The Barefoot Contessa is pretty awful in every conceivable way. According to Manckiewicz, he couldn't make the film he wanted because certain subjects couldn't be dealt with onscreen in those days. I get that, but the alternative he cooked up was so ill-conceived that it effectively destroys any sympathy one might have had for the characters, not to mention any credibility the plot may have had (zero by that point).The movie begins and ends with the title character's funeral, during which flashbacks from several key funeral attendees recall her recent past. Discovered in a Madrid nightclub by a quartet of unseemly Hollywood types trawling for a “fresh new face”, Maria Vargas (Gardner), somewhat reluctantly, is whisked off to Tinseltown, where she becomes an immediate international sensation. Suffice it to say, things go downhill from there.Warren Stevens plays the humorless, sadistic autocrat (allegedly based on Howard Hughes) who leads and finances the initial show-biz expedition in search of fresh blood. Of all the characters in the film, Stevens' mean-spirited Kirk Edwards may come closest to feeling truly alive, in spite of how despicably he behaves. Sadly, Humphrey Bogart, one of my all-time favorites, seems completely miscast. As a washed-up film director looking to revive his career, he is wan and tired-looking, disinterested in the obvious allure of his career's newfound savior (throughout, he maintains fidelity to his spiteful, bitterly amusing girlfriend, well played by Elizabeth Sellars). I don't mind that Bogart looks like the hundred -year old man, or that there is a determined lack of chemistry between him and Gardner: since Bogart acts as her father/confessor figure, a sexual attraction would seem almost incestuous. What I do mind is the lack of any spark (or courage) he brings to his character. It's like, as an actor, he's going through the motions. Incidentally, I also dislike the role his ineffective character plays in the trajectory of Maria Vargas' career and final days, and his sudden moment of precognition at the wedding party is laughable, but these are missteps on the part of the scriptwriters, not the actor.Edmund O'Brien, as the clammy PR guy, seems like he stepped in from a different movie, maybe a comedy by Billy Wilder. He's a caricature in The Barefoot Contessa, and I suppose he's meant to be comic relief, but it doesn't really work. Another caricature is embodied by Marius Goring playing yet another Eurotrash bazillionaire who woos, uses and abuses the leading lady across a scenic landscape (and seascape) of incomparable beauty.And finally....the long fantasized-about handsome prince. Rosanno Brazzi is smoothly charming as the Handsome Prince (actually an Italian Count) who swoops in to rescue poor Ava from her deeply dissatisfying life of privilege and adoration. Unfortunately, Brazzi's Count is one of the most ghastly, poorly developed characters I've seen in any film. Ever. That is not Brazzi's fault. Had Manckowicz gone with his original idea for the Count, Brazzi might have fared (marginally) better, but again, that would have required an acceptable script (and more enlightened times).Which brings me to Ava Gardner. By the time The Barefoot Contessa was filmed in1954, Gardner had been making movies since the early 40's: she was no novice to the dramatic arts, and given her startling good looks, the term “screen goddess” seems to have been invented especially for her. By her own admission, Gardner was never a dramatic powerhouse, although I would argue that her turn as Maxine Faulk in John Huston's The Night of the Iguana is one of the best performances given by any actor or actress in the 1960's (whether or not she gave an actual performance in that film or was simply playing herself is up for grabs and totally beside the point). Gardner was also noted for her near-legendary personal life which including cavorting with bullfighters, outdrinking heavyweights, and a particularly red-hot marriage to Frank Sinatra. In The Barefoot Contessa, all that fire and fury are conspicuously absent; in fact, she is comparatively sedate. Practically sleepwalking through the role, Gardner does a lot of standing and modeling without infusing Maria Vargas with any recognizably human qualities. And what passes for emotions are actually ridiculous notions based on fairy tales and the character's vaunted “innocence”. Innocence? In Hollywood? Part of it—a large part, probably—is the result of the faulty script but Gardner's somnambulism doesn't help matters. It's a bad film but if she'd at least made an effort to seem authentic—practice a more convincing accent, maybe, or infuse her character with a little passion—she may have livened things up considerably. Instead, the movie seems like an interminable drag, moving glacially from one scene to the next (with the occasional voiceover-at-the-cemetery thrown in to keep us up to speed in case we nodded off) until finally reaching its inexorable (and unforgivably dumb) conclusion.At 130 minutes, The Barefoot Contessa feels a lot longer, and with the terrible script and lackadaisical-to-poor performances (excepting Warren Stevens and Elizabeth Sellars), the mere act of watching it is noisome. The action (and I use that term loosely) covers 3 years in the life of The Barefoot Contessa. Watching this movie felt like watching every second of those 3 years tick by in slow motion.

Though I'd somehow missesd seeing this film all of my life, (it came out the year I was born), I just finished viewing it now, in 2020. I was blown away by the expert craftsmanship of everyone involved in the film. Firstly, The Director and Screenwriter, Josheph L. Mankiewicz. I'd seen his Oscar Winning films of 'A Letter to Three Wives' as well as his masterpiece, 'All About Eve', and I expected this script to be just as impeccable and polished as his two prior films were. It's very tough, but 'Contessa' might just be his (undiscovered) gem of them all. Superbly written, plotted and performed, and every actor and actress gives it their all. There was / is probably no more beautiful woman on celluloid than Ava Gardner in this film; beyond ravishing! Edmond O'Brien gives an Oscar winning performance here, and he deserved it, when he has finally has enough of his Millionaire Studio Boss and tells hims so, you will CHEER! Gorgeous color cinematography by the always talented Jack Cardiff. If you've never seen the film before, (it's possible, because I hadn't in 65+years), be prepared to be thoroughly entertained with a film 'made the old-fashioned way', with style and class and wit!

This is a wonderful classic film, with beautiful sets and costumes and phenomenal acting by Bogart and Ava Gardner in the lead roles. The story is elegantly plotted and the script is literate and often subtle in ways that scripts rarely are these days. Similarly the film direction and editing is stellar and there are many subtle visual jokes, though this is far from being a comic film.The film starts with the Contessa's funeral, so the viewer knows from the get go that this is not going to end happily but throughout one wants to know how she arrives at her premature death and why. Great movie. I'll watch it again. Also nice to know where the Barefoot Contessa cookbooks got their name-inspiration from!

La qualité de l'image est plutôt bien. Par contre je ne sais pas ce que cela donne pour un grand écran.

Brilliant movie worth watching for Boggie and Ava

Dear Ava! Al of us males still watching her movies are irresistibly and eternally attracted by her supreme feminine beauty. And this may just be one of her better movies, IMHO. A sad scenario, in which her real life seems to be differently depicted. Indeed, a wild person who never believed in love and marriage, but undertakes to seduce the whole universe while going forward with a sparkling acting career. Too bad this is only available in BR via Twilight Time, a more expensive company than Criterion itself...

An extraordinary good movuie featuring the gorgeous Ava Gardner. She is absolutely terrific in this, probably her very best, Movie. Get it before it disappears entiely. The story and acting was superb. The takes excellent --- Bogie was of course perfect in his role. E. O'Brien won the academy award as supporting actor. EXCELLENT

my alltime favourite drama, Ava Gardner is brilliant and Bogie is not the leading man in this one, but he is also brilliant as the her friend and mentor. The whole film is just so mysterious and so dream like, of course that is the effect that is made by having the film narrataed in parts by the actors. It's a very sad film but just grabs you from beginning to end.