The Barefoot Contessa

1954

Action / Crime / Drama / Mystery / Romance

18
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 71% · 12 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 71% · 5K ratings
IMDb Rating 6.9/10 10 14206 14.2K

dancer madrid, spain count millionaire film director

Plot summary

A washed-up filmmaker gets a second chance at stardom when he discovers stunning peasant Maria Vargas dancing in a Madrid nightclub. Goaded by his producer, the director convinces Maria to screen test for, and then star in, his next big picture. But as the producer's possessive nature and the realities of stardom weigh on Maria, she seeks a genuine lover with whom she can escape.

Director

Joseph L. Mankiewicz Photo
Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Top cast

Enzo Staiola Photo
Enzo Staiola as Busboy
Edmond O'Brien Photo
Edmond O'Brien as Oscar Muldoon
Gertrude Flynn Photo
Gertrude Flynn as Lulu McGee
Diana Decker Photo
Diana Decker as Drunken Blonde
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
1.06 GB
1280*694
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 8 min
Seeds 5
2.06 GB
1920*1040
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
2 hr 8 min
Seeds 13

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by ptmcq05 7 / 10

All About Maria

Four years after the phenomenal All About Eve, Joseph L Manckiewicz moves away from Broadway and lands in Hollywood. Naturally, everything in Hollywood is bound to be louder, more vulgar, more shallow and more expensive and surprisingly less relatable, less credible. Ava Gardner is breathtakingly beautiful and Jack Cardiff photographs her like a goddess but that's no match for any of the exchanges between Bette Davis and Thelma Ritter in All About Eve. Here the soap opera elements dominate the tale. The Italian aristocrats as played by Rossano Brazzi and Valentina Cortese take the story for a ludicrous spin. Josseph L Manckiewicz as a writer and director makes sure the film doesn't become "The Legend Of Lylah Clare" for instance. Humphery Bogart plays the lead and I forgot to mention it. I wonder why. He's wonderful in it but the Oscar went to Edmond O'Brian for his unbearable press agent. Ava Gardner presence transformed this lurid tale into a classic and it's bound to remain so for ever.
Reviewed by MartinHafer 7 / 10

Pretty good, but also VERY whiny

The film begins in Spain where a totally obnoxious and evil rich producer (Warren Stevens) has come to offer a talented Spanish lady (Ava Gardner) a film contract. His entourage includes an alcoholic director who is on the wagon (Humphrey Bogart) and a fast-talking idiot PR man (Edmund O'Brien). Ms. Gardner makes it big in Hollywood, but seems bored with it all and spends much of the rest of the movie running from herself until a very tragic conclusion.Aside from a few clichés here and there, this is a pretty good film and has a pretty cynical view of stardom. However, I also felt pretty annoyed at times during the picture because most of the characters in the film are amazingly wealthy and/or famous and they spend all their time whining about how bored they are!! This is exactly the sort of film that gives Communist revolutionaries the incentive to destroy the 'decadent Capitalists'! The character Ava Gardner played was on top of the world but also spent much of the film in a depressed stupor and the rich guys around her were ALL selfish louts. In fact, the only decent person in the entire film was Bogart.While very watchable, the film is highly reminiscent of the Godard film, CONTEMPT, as well as THE SUN ALSO RISES (also starring Gardner). It's almost like the producers of the these other two films teased apart THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA and broke it into two films.
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