The Barefoot Contessa (film, 1954) starring Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart and Edmond O'Brien

American actor Humphrey Bogart plays Harry Dawes, the tired film director who discovers her. The story opens at her funeral. Three men who knew her each tell part of her life: the director, the press agent, and the husband.

The film was shot in Technicolor in Rome and on the Italian Riviera. Ava Gardner was dressed by the Fontana sisters, the Roman couturières. American actor Edmond O'Brien won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as the press agent, Oscar Muldoon.

Plot

Rain falls on a cemetery on the Italian Riviera. Mourners stand under umbrellas at the funeral of the Contessa Torlato-Favrini. The world knew her as the film star Maria D'Amata.

Ava Gardner as Maria Vargas in The Barefoot Contessa (film, 1954)

Among them is Harry Dawes, a film writer and director. He knew her before she was famous, and he remembers how it began.

A few years earlier, Harry Dawes was a director whose career had faded. He had stopped drinking, and he needed work.

He found it with Kirk Edwards, a rich and ruthless Wall Street financier who wanted to make his first film. Kirk Edwards wanted a new face for it.

So Harry Dawes, Kirk Edwards, his girlfriend Myrna and his press agent, Oscar Muldoon, go to a nightclub in Madrid. They have come to see a dancer named Maria Vargas.

Maria Vargas dances, and the room belongs to her. When Oscar Muldoon invites her to their table, she refuses. She does not sit with the customers.

Kirk Edwards threatens to cancel the film unless Harry Dawes brings her over. Maria Vargas knows Harry Dawes's name from his films. For him alone, she agrees to come.

She dislikes Kirk Edwards on sight. When the men talk of a screen test in Rome, she excuses herself, and disappears.

Harry Dawes finds her at her family's home. She tells him she grew up poor during the Spanish Civil War, often without shoes. She still goes barefoot when she can. She likes to feel the earth under her feet.

He persuades her to come. Her screen test is a triumph, and she agrees to make the film on one condition: Harry Dawes must direct her.

Her first film makes Maria Vargas, now called Maria D'Amata, a star overnight. Harry Dawes's career comes back to life with hers. They make three films together, and become close friends.

Then news comes from Spain. Her father has killed her mother. Oscar Muldoon fears the scandal will end her career.

Maria D'Amata flies home and speaks for her father at his trial. He is acquitted. The public loves her honesty, and she becomes a bigger star than before.

Two years later, at a party in Hollywood, a South American millionaire named Alberto Bravano admires her openly. He invites her to join him on the French Riviera. Kirk Edwards forbids her to go.

So she goes. Oscar Muldoon, tired of serving Kirk Edwards, follows the new money.

On the Riviera, Maria D'Amata drifts through the international set, polite and bored. She envies Harry Dawes the quiet happiness he has found with Jerry, a script girl who is now his wife.

One night at the casino in Monte Carlo, Alberto Bravano loses heavily. In front of everyone, he blames her for his bad luck.

A stranger steps in and slaps his face. He is Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini, of an old Italian family. He offers Maria D'Amata his arm, and takes her away.

He had seen her once before, that same day, dancing barefoot at a gypsy camp. He seldom goes to the movies. He has no idea she is famous.

Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini brings her to his villa at Rapallo, where he lives with his widowed sister, Eleanora Torlato-Favrini. Over the door, the family motto is carved in stone: "Che sarà sarà." ("What will be, will be.")

For the first time in her life, Maria D'Amata is in love. They marry in a grand ceremony, and Harry Dawes gives the bride away.

But the count and his sister are the last of their line. And the count has a secret. A wound from the war has left him impotent. He tells his bride only on their wedding night.

Months later, on a rainy night, Maria D'Amata comes to Harry Dawes's hotel. She tells him everything. She is carrying another man's child. She believes her husband will welcome it as the heir his family needs.

Harry Dawes warns her that Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini is too proud for that. She does not listen, and drives home to tell her husband.

As she leaves, Harry Dawes sees the count's car following hers. He follows too.

At the villa, shots ring out. The count has killed his wife and her lover, his own chauffeur, before she could tell him about the child. Harry Dawes arrives too late. He says nothing about the baby.

At the cemetery, the rain stops. Sunlight falls on a statue of Maria, barefoot, above her grave. The police lead the count away.

Cast

• Humphrey Bogart as Harry Dawes

  

• Ava Gardner as Maria Vargas (Maria D'Amata)

  

• Edmond O'Brien as Oscar Muldoon

  

• Marius Goring as Alberto Bravano
• Valentina Cortese as Eleanora Torlato-Favrini
• Rossano Brazzi as Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini
• Elizabeth Sellars as Jerry Dawes
• Warren Stevens as Kirk Edwards
• Franco Interlenghi as Pedro Vargas
• Mari Aldon as Myrna
• Enzo Staiola as the busboy
• Bessie Love as Mrs. Eubanks

Ava Gardner was under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The studio lent her for $200,000 plus ten percent of the box office, twice the fee of Humphrey Bogart, who still took top billing.

She had never danced on screen before. She rehearsed the flamenco for three weeks. When the playback machine broke during filming, she did not miss a step. She kept dancing while the extras clapped out the beat.

Humphrey Bogart did not make it easy. On her first day, he turned away in the middle of a take and shouted: "Hey, Mankiewicz, can you tell this dame to speak up? I can't hear a goddamn word she says."

In her memoir she wrote that she "felt nervous at being in such high-toned company. And I have to say that Mr. Bogart did not make my life any easier."

Joseph L. Mankiewicz hurt her too. During a camera test, the British cinematographer Jack Cardiff asked her to lie still on a sofa while he tried his lenses. Joseph L. Mankiewicz walked past and said: "You're the sittingest goddamn actress I've ever worked with."

She took offense, and stopped trusting him. Years later, Joseph L. Mankiewicz told his biographer, Kenneth L. Geist: "I'm truly sorry about it. I made a stupid joke which I thought would make her laugh and relax, and it had just the opposite effect."

Critics have often noted the gentleness of Humphrey Bogart's Harry Dawes, warmer than his usual tough men: a tired, decent man who makes Maria a star, and stays her friend. During filming he suffered from severe coughing fits, and some scenes needed many takes.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote the part of Oscar Muldoon for Edmond O'Brien. He had loved working with him on Julius Caesar (film, 1953), and enjoyed his clowning between scenes.

Edmond O'Brien was getting star billing at the time, and hesitated to take a supporting role. Humphrey Bogart told him the part was a perfect match. It was. His sweating, scheming press agent won him the Oscar, and he became the only actor to win an Oscar for playing a character named Oscar.

Italian actor Rossano Brazzi plays the count, and Italian actress Valentina Cortese his sister. Her name appears on screen as "Cortesa." British actor Marius Goring plays the millionaire Alberto Bravano.

In a small part as a busboy is Enzo Staiola. Six years earlier he had been the little boy in Bicycle Thieves (Italian: Ladri di biciclette, film, 1948), by Italian director Vittorio De Sica.

Production

Joseph L. Mankiewicz first wrote the story as a novel. He had just won Academy Awards for writing and directing All About Eve (film, 1950).

For this film he formed his own company, Figaro, Inc., with a deal from United Artists. It was the first film he wrote, directed and produced all at once, and his first in color.

Who was Maria Vargas? Many saw American actress Rita Hayworth, born Margarita Cansino, a dancer who became a star and married Prince Aly Khan.

Some details came close to Ava Gardner's own life. Kirk Edwards, the tycoon who discovers Maria, recalled her old relationship with the American tycoon and aviator Howard Hughes.

Howard Hughes heard about it after filming, and threatened to sue unless lines were changed. Kirk Edwards became a Wall Street financier instead of a Texas tycoon. Howard Hughes, who owned the airline TWA, then gave the film's editor a letter allowing him a seat on any TWA flight, so the changes could be made.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz had first wanted an unknown for Maria. He looked at the young English actress Joan Collins and the Italian actress Rossana Podestà, then decided he needed a star. Ava Gardner became the only possible choice.

Filming began in January 1954 at the Cinecittà studios in Rome. These were the years when Hollywood came to Rome to make films, and the press called the city "Hollywood on the Tiber."

The gypsy dance was shot in the olive groves of Tivoli, outside Rome. In April, the company moved north to the Riviera, to Sanremo and Portofino.

At Sanremo, the count's castle by the sea was a set. It was built on the walls of a pigeon-shooting range, itself set on old German fortifications along the shore west of the town.

Jack Cardiff filmed it all in rich Technicolor. He had photographed Ava Gardner once before, in Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (film, 1951).

Her clothes came from the Sorelle Fontana, the Roman couture house of three sisters, Zoe Fontana, Micol Fontana and Giovanna Fontana. Their atelier stood near the Spanish Steps.

For the film, the sisters made thirty designs. Maria's wardrobe runs from grand evening gowns to casual clothes: shorts, cardigans and simple shirts, all cut with a couture fit.

Her wedding dress was also theirs. The Fontana sisters later gave it to the Civic Museums of Venice.

Ava Gardner and the sisters became friends for life. After the film, she ordered thirty new dresses from them every year.

The statue of Maria at the cemetery was made by Assen Peikov, a Bulgarian sculptor who worked in Rome. According to one account, it later stood in the garden of Ava Gardner's husband, American singer Frank Sinatra, in Palm Springs. It has since been lost.

Italian composer Mario Nascimbene wrote the score. Italian art director Arrigo Equini designed the sets.

The motto over the count's door had an afterlife of its own. American songwriter Jay Livingston saw "Che sarà sarà" in the film, and wrote it down as a possible song title.

With his partner, American lyricist Ray Evans, he turned it into "Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)." American singer and actress Doris Day sang it in The Man Who Knew Too Much (film, 1956), by British-born director Alfred Hitchcock, and the song won the Academy Award.

Release/Reception

The Barefoot Contessa opened in New York on 29 September 1954. It reached Italian cinemas on 12 March 1955, as La contessa scalza. In the United States and Canada it earned $3.3 million in rentals.

For the premiere, the Fontana sisters made Ava Gardner a ball gown of water-green satin. The low-cut bodice and full skirt were embroidered with strass, pearls and crystals in a pattern of flowers.

Critics argued. Gene Arneel of Variety called it a "dish of ingeniously-fashioned, original entertainment for grown-up viewers."

Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times called it Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "wickedest scalping job to date, not excepting All About Eve." The Chicago Tribune wrote: "Ava Gardner was never lovelier to look at."

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times was unmoved. He called it a "grotesque barren film."

In France, the young critic François Truffaut, later a celebrated French director, defended it: "A subtle and intelligent film, beautifully directed and acted."

At the Academy Awards, Edmond O'Brien won Best Supporting Actor, and the Golden Globe as well. Joseph L. Mankiewicz was nominated for his screenplay. He lost to American writer Budd Schulberg, for On the Waterfront (film, 1954).

The film's name traveled far. French crime writer Fred Vargas took her pen name from Maria Vargas. In 1975, a food shop in Westhampton Beach, New York, was named after the film. American cook Ina Garten bought it in 1978, and the name became famous all over again with her books and television show, Barefoot Contessa.

Today the film is remembered for Jack Cardiff's color, the Fontana clothes and Ava Gardner. She had always loved to go barefoot, and so did Maria.

And the motto over the door still answers every question the story asks: che sarà sarà, what will be, will be.

Where to watch The Barefoot Contessa online

United States: free with ads on Tubi, The Roku Channel and YouTube, and free with a library card on Hoopla. It can also be rented or bought on Amazon Video, Apple TV and Fandango at Home.

United Kingdom: streaming on Amazon Prime Video. It can also be rented or bought on Apple TV and Amazon Video.

Spain: streaming on Amazon Prime Video, as La condesa descalza.

France: streaming on the MGM Amazon Channel and the France TV Amazon Channel, as La Comtesse aux pieds nus.

Germany: streaming on the MGM+ Amazon Channel, as Die barfüßige Gräfin. It can also be rented or bought on Apple TV.

Australia: streaming on Amazon Prime Video. It can also be rented or bought on Apple TV and Amazon Video.

Availability varies by subscription plan and can change over time.