The Barefoot Contessa

In The Barefoot Contessa there are the makings of approximately three first-rank films. Unfortunately, the best two already have been made with more skill and at greater length under the titles All About Eve and The Bad and the Beautiful. What is original in the new picture receives scanty attention because of the time spent on the other two. And it really is a shame that writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz could never quite decide on which story to concentrate because he ends with a second rate product in which the flashes of brilliance seem to shake free in spite of, rather than because of, his intentions.

First, Mankiewicz tries to recapture the salty flavor of epigramatic dialogue that marked All About Eve. Sometimes he partially succeeds. For example, a fading ingenue hurls "What have you got that I haven't?" at Ava Gardner, and is told by a mutual friend, "What she's got you can't spell, and what you have you used to have." But more often, the lines strain hard to evoke gasps of admiration; they produce only grunts of mystification. To prove that disaster has struck, a publicity agent says of a movie mogul, "I could tell something was wrong because he was eating as though the Labor Government had just been elected unanimously." It is not really surprising that the mogul's style of eating (he was putting jam on toast) lacked the particular characterization called for. What is worse, all of Mankiewicz's witticisms are given such arch delivery that one expects Jack Webb's orchestra to underline each one with a dum-du-dum-dum.

Also detracting from what seems the main theme of the film--the growth and disintegration of a beautiful young girl--is the obsession the motion picture industry has for itself. The Bad and the Beautiful said quite a bit about professional back-stabbing and the ruthless, compulsive people who produce films. Well, The Barefoot Contessa revisits the same territory, using the same map and plots no new landmarks of villainy. Along with the favorite theory of many top movie writers that nothing is quite so worth studying as the workings of their own industry are the corollaries that all these folk, with their immense fortunes, are just as miserable as the next fellow and that everyone within a fifty mile radius of Grauman's Chinese is awfully lonely behind the facade of glamor and sophistication. Perhaps these doctrines are healthy sops for those who go whole days without being asked for an autograph, but they are rather boring, especially when thrown into an already crowded agenda of woe.

When Mankiewicz finally does concentrate on the alleged problems of a tempestuous Spanish beauty, he shows the same lack of decision. He just can't decide what the poor girl's trouble is. First, she is a hot-blooded little wanton who, while proud of the fact that "no man has ever bought men," has no real objection to the barter system. But she isn't satisfied with her earthy life. It's never exactly clear why, except that she yearns to be "a really good actress," so she goes to Hollywood. Then everyone decides that Maria is really an iceberg and incapable of love, or of being loved. This fixed as her real trouble, the picture goes along its sententious way, proving that wealth and fame don't mean a thing if you're not happy, and that you've got to have true love to be happy. As an argument, The Barefoot Contessa is no more impressive than it is as entertainment.

The picture is almost rescued, however, by several searching performances and Miss Gardner's physique. The latter is well known. Humphrey Bogart, Edmund O'Brien and Marius Goring account for the talent. Bogart grows in stature with each new picture, and is most bengin and forceful as Maria's director and only friend. O'Brien is the press agent, and is skillful enough to play a man, undergoing startling moral growth in about forty-five minutes of film time with precision instead of only vigor. Goring is a lecherous South American millionaire in a very small part--which shows how far from the mark Mankiewicz was in planning the film, since Goring's services should always be made the most of. Performance, though--even beauty--can't keep the film from alternating between boredom and silliness.