The Barefoot Contessa (PG.)
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. 1954
Starring Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, Edmond O'Brien, Marius Goring, Rossano Brazzi, Elizabeth Sellars and Warren Stevens. 127 mins. Released as part of Eureka's Masters Of Cinema series.
It's a deceptively strong title. Doesn't sound like much but it's still the case that when it comes to Contessas, you're barefoot or you're nothing. Even so, I was so completely ignorant of this film that as I slipped the review disc into the player I was expecting it to be in black and white. It's not just in colour, but in the best colour there can be: Jack Cardiff photographed Technicolor. That was a terrific surprise, but one that would be followed by a series of disappointments.
The plot concerns the rapid rise and early death of film star Maria Vargas: not a spoiler, the film starts with her funeral and is conducted in flashback and voice over from this event. Three years earlier she had been discovered dancing in a Madrid nightclub by a disparate, and desperate, group of movie types: down-on-his-luck movie writer/ director Harry Dawes (Bogart), sweaty publicist Oscar Muldoon (O'Brien) and cold-hearted millionaire Mr Kirk Edwards. She has innate star quality but is diffident about their offer of movie stardom. Dawes persuades her to do a screen test and she becomes a global sensation but remains unimpressed by fame and celebrity – she shuns the advances of her wealthy admirers in favour of bunk-ups with the help. She is holding out for real love, like that between Dawes and his lady Jerry (Sellars.)
All I knew about this film going in was its mention in Williams Goldman's seminal book Adventures In The Screen Trade where he singles out a line delivered by Bogart's wife, a rebuff to a bitter actress who criticises Vargas at a party. The line is, “What she's got you couldn't spell, and what you've got, you used to have.” Goldman uses it to illustrate his point that a screenwriter should give the star everything (though as the sole purpose of the wife role is to make sure we believe Bogart has no carnal desires towards Gardner, that his friendship and concern for her is sincere, it seems cruel to suggest taking it away from her.)
I bring it up here because this snappy one-liner is in stark contrast with the rest of the dialogue. Moments when characters restrict themselves to just one line are rare in Mankiewicz's script. Joseph L. had one of the great Hollywood careers directing (and often writing and producing) titles like The Ghost and Mrs Muir, A Letter To Three Wives, All About Eve, the Brando Julius Caesar, the Burton/ Taylor Cleopatra and Sleuth. And I would warrant that not a single donkey was allowed anywhere near any of those productions because if they had the legs would've been talked right off them.
Yap, yap, yap, yap. Boy, do they go on. There's a scene early on where Bogie tracks Gardner down to her lowly Madrid apartment and tries to pursue her to do a screen test. It goes on for around ten minutes. In life that a pretty short time to try and talk someone round to making a life-changing decision; on the screen, it's an eternity. The point of the scene is reached early on and then they just keep rehashing and rehashing it. You may think people talk a lot in Tarantino, but watching this makes you realise how astute he is at keeping the film moving and knowing how long he can get away with halting the film for a little monologue, or static back and forth. There's no variation here and it quickly gets wearing over the course of more than two hours.
In some aspects, the film is pretty bold. It isn't just told in flashback, but in multiple voice-over flashbacks, flicking back between Dawes, Muldoon and the Count (Brazzi.) One vital scene, the one where Gardner meets her future husband, is shown twice from different angles. (I was going to say Rashomon style, but actually, the event is identical in both versions.) There are some smart bits of omissions. Gardner's dance in the Madrid nightclub is shown only through the faces of the audience watching it.
Learning afterwards that O'Brien had won a Best Supporting Oscar for his role was a bit of a shock but it is a remarkable performance in as much as it seems to combine both the main roles in Sweet Smell Of Success: he is Burt Lancaster's vocals delivering Tony Curtis-style patter.
For all its talk, Mankiewicz script doesn't have the sharpness of Clifford Odets' Sweet Smell. Everybody talks script rather than dialogue: like Harrison Ford's compliant to Lucas on the first Star Wars, you can type Mankiewicz dialogue, but nobody would say it. The move is dark around the edges, particularly in its view of tycoon Kirk Edwards as an empty shell of a man, but meek in the middle. Bogart's role is supposed to be world-weary cynic but he seems like a big softy. A little edge would've gone a long way.
Finally, I have to ask in all honesty – Ava Gardner, what's the big deal? The woman Sinatra was so crazy about he risked his whole career for her, has this reputation as one of the hottest movie stars ever, and this film is all about the lust and envy she generates in others. I just can't see it.
Extras.
A gossipy commentary with film historians Julie Kirgo and David Del Valle
Original theatrical trailer
A collector’s booklet featuring a new essay by Glenn Kenny; and rare archival imagery.
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. 1954
Starring Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart, Edmond O'Brien, Marius Goring, Rossano Brazzi, Elizabeth Sellars and Warren Stevens. 127 mins. Released as part of Eureka's Masters Of Cinema series.
It's a deceptively strong title. Doesn't sound like much but it's still the case that when it comes to Contessas, you're barefoot or you're nothing. Even so, I was so completely ignorant of this film that as I slipped the review disc into the player I was expecting it to be in black and white. It's not just in colour, but in the best colour there can be: Jack Cardiff photographed Technicolor. That was a terrific surprise, but one that would be followed by a series of disappointments.
The plot concerns the rapid rise and early death of film star Maria Vargas: not a spoiler, the film starts with her funeral and is conducted in flashback and voice over from this event. Three years earlier she had been discovered dancing in a Madrid nightclub by a disparate, and desperate, group of movie types: down-on-his-luck movie writer/ director Harry Dawes (Bogart), sweaty publicist Oscar Muldoon (O'Brien) and cold-hearted millionaire Mr Kirk Edwards. She has innate star quality but is diffident about their offer of movie stardom. Dawes persuades her to do a screen test and she becomes a global sensation but remains unimpressed by fame and celebrity – she shuns the advances of her wealthy admirers in favour of bunk-ups with the help. She is holding out for real love, like that between Dawes and his lady Jerry (Sellars.)
All I knew about this film going in was its mention in Williams Goldman's seminal book Adventures In The Screen Trade where he singles out a line delivered by Bogart's wife, a rebuff to a bitter actress who criticises Vargas at a party. The line is, “What she's got you couldn't spell, and what you've got, you used to have.” Goldman uses it to illustrate his point that a screenwriter should give the star everything (though as the sole purpose of the wife role is to make sure we believe Bogart has no carnal desires towards Gardner, that his friendship and concern for her is sincere, it seems cruel to suggest taking it away from her.)
I bring it up here because this snappy one-liner is in stark contrast with the rest of the dialogue. Moments when characters restrict themselves to just one line are rare in Mankiewicz's script. Joseph L. had one of the great Hollywood careers directing (and often writing and producing) titles like The Ghost and Mrs Muir, A Letter To Three Wives, All About Eve, the Brando Julius Caesar, the Burton/ Taylor Cleopatra and Sleuth. And I would warrant that not a single donkey was allowed anywhere near any of those productions because if they had the legs would've been talked right off them.
Yap, yap, yap, yap. Boy, do they go on. There's a scene early on where Bogie tracks Gardner down to her lowly Madrid apartment and tries to pursue her to do a screen test. It goes on for around ten minutes. In life that a pretty short time to try and talk someone round to making a life-changing decision; on the screen, it's an eternity. The point of the scene is reached early on and then they just keep rehashing and rehashing it. You may think people talk a lot in Tarantino, but watching this makes you realise how astute he is at keeping the film moving and knowing how long he can get away with halting the film for a little monologue, or static back and forth. There's no variation here and it quickly gets wearing over the course of more than two hours.
In some aspects, the film is pretty bold. It isn't just told in flashback, but in multiple voice-over flashbacks, flicking back between Dawes, Muldoon and the Count (Brazzi.) One vital scene, the one where Gardner meets her future husband, is shown twice from different angles. (I was going to say Rashomon style, but actually, the event is identical in both versions.) There are some smart bits of omissions. Gardner's dance in the Madrid nightclub is shown only through the faces of the audience watching it.
Learning afterwards that O'Brien had won a Best Supporting Oscar for his role was a bit of a shock but it is a remarkable performance in as much as it seems to combine both the main roles in Sweet Smell Of Success: he is Burt Lancaster's vocals delivering Tony Curtis-style patter.
For all its talk, Mankiewicz script doesn't have the sharpness of Clifford Odets' Sweet Smell. Everybody talks script rather than dialogue: like Harrison Ford's compliant to Lucas on the first Star Wars, you can type Mankiewicz dialogue, but nobody would say it. The move is dark around the edges, particularly in its view of tycoon Kirk Edwards as an empty shell of a man, but meek in the middle. Bogart's role is supposed to be world-weary cynic but he seems like a big softy. A little edge would've gone a long way.
Finally, I have to ask in all honesty – Ava Gardner, what's the big deal? The woman Sinatra was so crazy about he risked his whole career for her, has this reputation as one of the hottest movie stars ever, and this film is all about the lust and envy she generates in others. I just can't see it.
Extras.
A gossipy commentary with film historians Julie Kirgo and David Del Valle
Original theatrical trailer
A collector’s booklet featuring a new essay by Glenn Kenny; and rare archival imagery.
