Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

The Barefoot Contessa Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 30, 2020

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.

Unlike Sunset Boulevard, The Barefoot Contessa is not narrated by a corpse, but some might feel that film director Harry Dawes (Humphrey Bogart), who provides the voiceover in this film, is at least one of the "walking dead" of Hollywood, a washed up guy with a supposedly former drinking problem who has been buffeted by the vagaries of fate enough that he's been consigned to working for martinet multimillionaire Kirk Edwards (Warren Stevens), who has decided he wants to pursue a film producing career. Edwards has brought a small coterie of people including Dawes and Muldoon to Madrid, where he's heard of a charismatic lounge singer and dancer named Maria Vargas (Ava Gardner).

It's interesting if perhaps slightly misleading that Eureka's press release describes The Barefoot Contessa as a "bitter-sweet Hollywood satire", because while many would probably instantly concur with the "bitter-sweet" part, the "satire" might be a harder sell due to what is this film's almost melodramatic bent at times. Things start out in quasi-Eve or in fact even jaded Sunset Boulevard territory, with Dawes' voiceover making it clear that he had "been there, done that" in the world of Hollywood for years. But Mankiewicz soon gives in to more soap operatic territory as Edwards insists that Dawes procure Maria's services for an upcoming film, something he of course does, leading to a professional collaboration which benefits both Dawes' and Maria's career.

But a lot of The Barefoot Contessa just plays like a glossy fairy tale, albeit one of the Grimm Brothers variety due to some kind of disturbing subtexts that are added. Maria just becomes an instant star, something that allows Dawes to leverage his own connection to break away from the oily Edwards, but then a whole romantic element involving Maria and a European count (hence the film's title) takes up the latter half or so of the film, introducing almost Douglas Sirkian amounts of hyperbolic emotions and sexual frustration. That in turn leads to a completely over the top climax that may have been planned as being cathartic, but which just comes off as kind of silly and contrived.

Mankiewicz also makes occasionally rather odd decisions, as in a whole series of little quasi-vignettes that play out in the audience who see Maria perform early in the film. It all adds up to an often interesting, but rarely very emotionally involving, film that is nonetheless incredibly scenic (in more ways than one), but which is arguably missing at least a bit of the trademark Mankiewicz acerbic wit.

The Barefoot Contessa Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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".

The Barefoot Contessa Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary has been ported over from the prior United States release, and features David Del Valle and Julie Kirgo.


• Trailer (HD; 1:52)

Eureka! Entertainment provided only check discs for the purposes of this review, but the press sheet they sent mentions this release also contains a collector's booklet featuring a new essay by Farren Smith Nehme and rare archival material.

The Barefoot Contessa Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.