Synopsis
Has-been director Harry Dawes gets a new lease on his career when the independently wealthy tycoon Kirk Edwards hires him to write and direct a film. They go to Madrid to find Maria Vargas, a dancer who will star in the film.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Humphrey BogartHarry Dawes
- Ava GardnerMaria Vargas
- Edmond O'BrienOscar Muldoon
- Marius GoringAlberto Bravano
- Valentina CorteseEleanora Torlato-Favrini
- Rossano BrazziCount Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini
- Elizabeth SellarsJerry
- Warren StevensKirk Edwards
- Franco InterlenghiPedro Vargas
- Mari AldonMyrna
Recommendations
- 88
Chicago Tribune
Mankiewicz's classic Hollywood backstage tale of a tragic sex goddess/superstar (Ava Gardner), her gloomy, intellectual director (Humphrey Bogart) and the retinue of glamorous and/or exploitive movie types around them. [05 Nov 2004, p.C6] - 80
CineVue
Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The Barefoot Contessa is at once a deeply satirical depiction of Hollywood and a sumptuous saga of the rise and fall of a star. - 80
The New Yorker
In The Barefoot Contessa, [Mankiewicz] shows the sordidness of the money-driven, ego-fuelled, ruthless machinations that are both central to the business of Hollywood and constantly threaten to derail it. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Ava Gardner in the role of her career (Humphrey Bogart isn't bad either) and writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz at the top of his form. [03 Dec 2006, p.18] - 75
Chicago Reader
It’s overlong, talky, and sometimes stolid, but these are all familiar Mankiewicz failings. He shines in his deft verbal wit and novelistic propensity for detail, backlit by a highly personal blend of romance and cynicism. An imperfect film, but its excesses are as suggestive as its subtleties. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA is marked by Mankiewicz's sharp wit--sometimes too much wit. When there is one character cracking wise, fine. When you have two, okay. But when almost all the characters sound as though they were sitting around the writer's table at the MGM commissary, suddenly credibility goes out the window. - 60
The New Yorker
The movie is so ornate and so garrulous about telling the dirty truth that it's a camp classic: a Cinderella story in which the prince turns out to be impotent. - 60
Empire
Entertaining satire from a talented cast.
