6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Has-been director Harry Dawes gets a new lease on his career when independently wealthy 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.
Starring: Ava Gardner (I), Humphrey Bogart, Edmond O'Brien, Marius Goring, Valentina CorteseRomance | 100% |
Drama | 51% |
Melodrama | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
DVD copy
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
In 1950, Joseph L. Mankiewicz turned a jaundiced eye toward the world of theater, skewering just about everyone and everything in and about that world in one of the all time classic films from Hollywood's Golden Era (and probably well beyond), All About Eve. Four years later, Mankiewicz attempted to do something along the same lines with regard to the movie industry, but as tends to be the case, lightning didn’t strike twice, generally speaking at least, though The Barefoot Contessa is still a rather interesting outing on a number of levels. The Barefoot Contessa has little of the scabrous wit that helped define All About Eve, but like the earlier film, it’s a grabbag of excellent performances, and like All About Eve, one of those performances won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, in this case Edmund O’Brien as nervous public relations agent Oscar Muldoon (George Sanders took home the trophy for All About Eve, playing a character probably more suave than but just as smarmy as Muldoon). Also much like All About Eve, much of The Barefoot Contessa is told as a flashback, and rather like that “other” film about show business that came out in 1950, Sunset Boulevard, the film begins with the ostensible focal character already deceased.
The Barefoot Contessa is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eureka! Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Eureka! provided only a check disc for purposes of this review, so I'm not privy to any information about the transfer that may have been included in the insert booklet. This presentation exhibits some of the anomalies that hampered the now long ago DVD release, but some of them are arguably exacerbated by both the widescreen format as well as the increased resolution of the Blu-ray. When this is firing on all cylinders, the palette looks nicely suffused and is largely accurate looking, given the fact that even in the best moments, color temperature can tend to ebb and flow (some scenes will look generally very good for a while and then tip toward peach tones before returning back). However, there are repeated registration issues that lead to minor but noticeable fringing, and a few sequences feature kind of weirdly skewed color and pretty ragged looking imagery, as in the screening room sequence documented in screenshots 15 and 16. Both the bookending funeral scenes, as well as several brief interstitials of Dawes at the funeral have a somewhat anemic looking palette (skewed just slightly toward purple) and less consistent clarity than the bulk of the presentation (see screenshots 14 and 18). What looks like chemical staining of some sort tends to dot the right side of the frame recurrently, leading to flares in the blue and purple range.
The Barefoot Contessa features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 Mono tracks (the LPCM track is incorrectly listed as Stereo on the
disc). My advice is to stay away from the surround track, as it really adds nothing substantial of value, and the mix is rather peculiar (Bogart's
narration sounds like it's being piped in from some distant antechamber). The LPCM track captures the film's limited sonic ambitions perfectly well,
supporting both dialogue and musical elements without any problems whatsoever.
While it's nothing other than a passing observation, those who utilize the optional subtitles on this release may find them occasionally offering text that
does not match the dialogue, and in some cases the changes are kind of weird. When Maria mentions to Harry in an early scene that Kirk "owns
Texas", the subtitles change that to "owns Wall Street".
It's a bit difficult to know exactly what Mankiewicz was really aiming for with regard to The Barefoot Contessa. All About Eve was razor sharp in its deconstruction of a star persona and the entourage surrounding her. But here Mankiewicz seems to want to "out Hollywood" Hollywood, by presenting an overly glamorized tale of a woman who is handed stardom without much fuss and bother, something that makes the roiling "personal" story of Maria seem almost ridiculously melodramatic by contrast. The entire cast is extremely effective (I was actually quite struck by Mari Aldon as one of Kirk's hangers on), and Mankiewicz offers some lovely European locations. Video encounters a few hurdles along the way, but the original mono audio is fine, for those considering a purchase.
1956
Warner Archive Collection
1958
1942
2008
1954
1945
Vintage Classics | 50th Anniversary Edition
1965
1945
2017
1948
Vintage Classics
1959
1932
Indicator Series | Standard Edition
1952
1946
Limited Edition
1950
Die Büchse der Pandora / Masters of Cinema
1929
1986
1958
Eureka Classics
1955
Indicator Series | Limited Edition
1968