The Barefoot Contessa |  | Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Actors: Humphrey Bogart, Ava Gardner, Edmond O'Brien, Marius Goring, Valentina Cortese
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $6.22
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New (23) Used (11) from $5.85
Seller: inetvideo
Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 10507
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), French (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 128 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: MGMD1002029D
ISBN: 0792850092
UPC: 027616862693
EAN: 9780792850090
ASIN: B00005AUK7
Theatrical Release Date: September 29, 1954
Release Date: June 19, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A director turns a barefoot cabaret dancer into a star who suffers a tragic end.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 30-JUL-2002
Media Type: DVD
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 40
 Could have been better March 18, 2010
R. Swanson (New Mexico)
There might be a good movie in here somewhere with some serious editing of the script. I'm not sure if it was actually very, very long or if it just seemed that way.
On the plus side, there are the stars: Ava Gardner is spectacular looking in a 1950's movie-star way and she gets to wear a lot of glamorous clothes, including some snazzy one-piece swim suits. Humphrey Bogart plays his usual wiser-than-anyone-else-in-the-film self and he does it well. When he, as a writer-director, meets her, as a Spanish cabaret dancer, in her dressing room, there is an immediate sense that these two are in the same league, whereas the others are second-rate background characters. If this connection had been developed into a romance the movie might have had some sizzle.
But the Bogie character has a sensible, boring girl back home and Ava goes on from one rich cad to another until she finally her Prince Charming. Since the opening scene shows her funeral, we know that she's not going to fare well and it's only a matter of seeing how she comes to her demise. Perhaps if someone else had played the Italian Count/Prince Charming, her decision might have been more understandable. Apparently Rossano Brazzi, who plays him, was a hot item at the time but I never understood his appeal. He's not handsome, is rather stocky, has no facial expressions and delivers his lines in a terribly wooden way. Maybe the heavy Italian accent is what some find charming.
My ending to the story would be to have Bogie grab Ava halfway through the film and say "Cut the crap; you belong with me!" Bogie's script-girl girlfriend could have one of the vapid rich guys and everyone would live happilly ever after.
There are the usual colorful shots of the French Riviera that were so appealing in 50's films but they are not worth the price of this picture. See "To Catch a Thief" instead. Or anything else.
 Fav Bogart. March 4, 2010
kolleen bowers (Phila, PA)
Great scenes, dialog, atmosphere, cast. Looooove the chemistry between Bogart and Gardner. One of my favorites.
Gardner Smolders, But Mankiewicz Misses with a Portrait of a Rita Hayworth-Like Star January 4, 2010
Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Ava Gardner. God love her. She almost makes Angelina Jolie look like a mousy schoolgirl. However, her startling beauty and intense sensuality are not enough to overcome the deficiencies of this overripe 1954 melodrama. All the signs looked promising since the credentials behind this production are impressive. Writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz just had a one-two punch winning back-to-back double Oscars for writing and directing A Letter to Three Wives and his indisputable high watermark, All About Eve, and Humphrey Bogart was at a career peak with The African Queen and The Caine Mutiny. Moreover, Mankiewicz chose the lethal combination of the movie industry and the international jet set as his vitriolic target this time. Nonetheless, much like Rob Marshall's recent adaptation of Nine, the movie simply lacks propulsion in the narrative flow and the characters any real depth to give the viewer a valid reason to engage in the fanciful story apparently based on Rita Hayworth's checkered life.
With a rather affected accent, Gardner plays Maria Vargas, a beautiful Spanish dancer discovered in a Madrid nightclub by a megalomaniacal Howard-Hughes-like tycoon, Kirk Edwards. She despises him almost immediately, but she does connect with one of his cohorts, a has-been writer/director named Harry Dawes, who convinces her to do a screen test. No romance develops between Maria and Harry but rather an abiding friendship that leads to international stardom after only three movies. Meanwhile, love escapes her but not tabloid scandal as her father stands trial for killing her mother. A convenient affair with Alberto Bravano, a South American bon vivant, follows, but their mutual manipulation seals the fate of the relationship. Maria finally meets the man of her dreams, Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini, and all's right with her world until a humiliating secret threatens to shatter everything.
The framing device of the funeral makes the resolution of the storyline all too clear, and the recurring use of flashbacks and voiceovers will be familiar to anyone who has seen Mankiewicz's two earlier classic films. Gardner is luscious to look at, especially in one shipboard scene where she throws a towel aside as everyone gawks at her beauty, but she even seems lost by some of the script machinations. Bogart plays Harry with the right jaundiced tone, but there is only so much he can do as an observer of the action and simply hands the picture to Gardner. Warren Stevens, Marius Goring (The Red Shoes), and Rosanno Brazzi (Summertime) play their accustomed types adequately, but the one true scene-stealer is Edmond O'Brien as mouthy agent Oscar Muldoon constantly wiping the sweat off his brow (naturally he is the one who won an Oscar). Master craftsmen Jack Cardiff (Black Narcissus) is responsible for the luxuriant camerawork here. There are no extras on the 2001 DVD other than the original theatrical trailer.
The Barren Contessa October 27, 2009
Paul C. Castagno
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
More a film of thought and sharp-edged dialogue or speechifying than plot or character. The shifting POVs across the Contessa's admirers define the sprawling and overlong narrative. Bogart's removal as a love interest diminishes the possible chemistry that might have ignited the film. What we get instead, is Maria Vargas being pursued by a series of ruthless and sullen rich men without a grain of real or palpable passion. In fact, all the leading men are rendered impotent in one way or another, fueling an unsettling uneasiness that grinds us along. With Ava and Bogart as two aloof characters at the film's center, our attention turns to the churn of ambience and mise-en-scene that sets the historical framework, providing some insight into the vacuity of the international set. With it's misanthropy and cynicism so unrelenting, it's a tough go that leaves a chill in the air colder than the death of its leading lady.
fantastic Ava Gardner June 9, 2009
John H. Johnson III (New Mexico)
What a movie and a great cast, Ava Gardner at her best. The movie still holds you until the last frame!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 40
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