Last night, I was struck dumb, then blown away...
Yes, as incongruous as all that.
But what else might be said to adequately explain my reaction to my first viewing of Joe Mankiewicz' glorious "The Barefoot Contessa"?
Yes, yes, it's true. Let's get past the protestations and "say it isn't so's", etc.
San Francisco's KQED (Public Broadcasting) had the audacity to show MGM's quite wonderful "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" last night with a rather odd-looking Hurd Hatfield (there! I've said it. I find him odd-looking...a bit surly, a bit effete, and as expressionless as if he'd gotten botox injections before every take), a wonderfully loud George Sanders, an impossibly young and lovely Angela Lansbury and the rather odd (I'm fond of "odd" tonight, apparently ... but "odd" is what I find this bit of casting) inclusion of Donna Reed and Peter Lawford, both of whom handle themselves wonderfully, but somehow I kept waiting for Lawford to break into "The French Lesson" from "Good News" and Reed to start dancing the Charleston, looking for a pool to fall into.
But I seriously digress...
Following "Dorian's" rather surprising manner of death and -- well-what-else-could-they-do-? -- end of the film, KQED began showing "The Barefoot Contessa."
Don't ask me why I'd never seen it. Surely I'd had access to it. For some reason, though, the notion of Humphrey Bogart and Edmond O'Brien co-starring in a movie with Ava Gardner and directed by Mankiewicz never seemed like dream casting to me.
But it was. The opening scenes were intriguing. It's the "Sunset Boulevard" approach...but without the victim doing the narrating. There we are at the funeral of the so-called "Barefoot" Contessa. And there is this statue...and there on the statue is a bare foot .
Joe Mankiewicz, in this early going, did seem to have been going to the "voiceover well" maybe once too often for my limmediate comfort level. But after a scene shift to Spain, some loud music and the sense that I was dancing without looking at my feet, and much exposition about who was in the cantina and why, and with O'Brien biting noisily into his ham sandwich-of-a-role, I found myself taken by the idea that Gardner was supposed to be this incredible dancer...but one whom we would never see dance. In fact, the exposition about getting her to join the table so that the rich guy could look her over for a possible movie role just about convinced me that maybe Gardner would do all her acting off-camera.
But fortunately, that was not the case. Show up she did. And from the first scene to the next and then the next, Gardner grew lovelier and lovelier until she was darned near too exquisite to behold. (And we do get to see her dance. With the gypsies. It's quite a dance. And you never get a sense that she's anything other than the terrific dancer the story starts off telling us she was).
It doesn't hurt, of course, that the color photography is breathtaking and that the locations are spectacular. And then there is Mario Nascimbene's wonderfully melodic, in a Hollywood splashy dramatic sort of way, score that not only dresses the visuals but accentuates the drama at every turn
And how many times, I marvelled, would the scene shift back to the funeral scene and focus on some other character who would then start sharing some new secret -- taking up where the last scene left off and continuing it into a new direction -- and never let me down?
Joe Mankiewicz never lets you down.
Oh, I was terribly surprised and disappointed for Rossano Brazzi to learn of his debilitating Army injuries...and it seems, today, rather odd to me (yes, ODD) that any man would wait until entering the bride's boudoir after the wedding to let her know that he was not going to be able to be more than a major letdown to her.
One doesn't expect that to happen to Ava Gardner...or any beautiful woman for that matter. And one certainly never got an inkling from Brazzi that he was pretty much a patchwork quilt of a man.
Oh, well...it matters not. It's a film of its time and the prevailing sensibilities. It has a good reputation, this film, and now I know why.
"Maria Vargas" is the best acting I've seen Ava Gardner do. I base that on the fact that I was never aware that she "was" acting. A natural movie star that woman, but in this movie she was real and you can't watch it without knowing how much better she could have been had she been given the parts and the great directors.
And Bogart played against type (that rough type) once again by being the kindest and most decent person in Maria's life. Even Edmond O'Brien settled into his role and became a good guy.
Yes, I'm terribly glad to know why this film is highly regarded. And I'm also terribly glad to have found another Nascimbene score to relish.
I recommend it, y'all!