Line #30 Film/TheBarefootContessa


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/barefoot_contessa_poster.jpeg]]
2	''The Barefoot Contessa'' is a 1954 film written and directed by Creator/JosephLMankiewicz, starring Creator/HumphreyBogart and Creator/AvaGardner.
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4	Harry Dawes (Bogart) is a past-his-prime alcoholic film director who is trying to make a comeback after quitting drinking. Insufferable rich {{Jerkass}} film producer Kirk Edwards (Warren Stevens) has taken Harry to UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} to search out "a new face" for motion pictures. In Madrid they see a nightclub performance by castanet dancer Maria Vargas (Gardner). Edwards and Dawes are both enchanted. Maria takes an instant dislike to Edwards because he is an insufferable rich {{Jerkass}}, but she forms a bond with good-hearted Harry, and Harry convinces Maria to leave for America and take a shot at a career in the movies.
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6	Maria adopts the stage name Maria D'Amata and becomes a huge movie star. Yet she is not happy, not being comfortable amongst the rich jet set, feeling more at home among the type of common people she grew up with. She rejects the attentions of loathsome Kirk Edwards, spending time with rich South American playboy Alberto Bravano (Marius Goring) instead. Then she finds love with an Italian count, Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini (Rossano Brazzi)--or so she thinks. Eventually, tragedy strikes.
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8	Edward O'Brien won an UsefulNotes/AcademyAward for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Oscar Muldoon, Kirk's toadying publicist.
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10	Silent film star Bessie Love has one line as a guest at dinner.
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12	Not to be confused with ''Series/BarefootContessa'', the CookingShow hosted by Ina Garten, who took the title from this movie.
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14	!!Tropes:
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16	* BarefootPoverty: Maria grew up too poor to afford shoes, but she comes to enjoy going barefoot.
17	* CrazyJealousGuy: When he realizes that Maria cheats on him, Vincenzo decides to murder her and her lover.
18	* DoubleStandardAbuseFemaleOnMale: Averted. Maria's father murders her mother. It is revealed in court that Maria's mother was a horrible monster of a woman who frequently hit Maria's father. Maria's father is acquitted on the grounds of self-defense.
19	* FeetFirstIntroduction: The first we see of Maria is a closeup of her bare feet as she makes out with a man in her dressing room closet.
20	* FirstPersonPeripheralNarrator: The protagonist of the film is Maria, but the narrators are Harry, Oscar and Vincenzo, three secondary characters.
21	* {{Flashback}}: Most of the movie, including a couple of flashbacks-within-flashbacks, as when Maria in Flashback 1 is telling Harry about Vincenzo being impotent, as dramatized in Flashback 2.
22	* ForegoneConclusion: The movie starts with Maria's funeral.
23	* FramingDevice: Harry, Oscar, Alberto, and Vincenzo, all at Maria's funeral, thinking about the past and how they knew her.
24	* GamblerGroupies: Maria is next to Alberto when he is playing at the casino. There are sexy ladies next to his opponent too.
25	* HorribleHollywood: Full of cynical dirtbags like Kirk and Oscar. Maria has great success but doesn't enjoy it, writing everything off as phony.
26	* InformationWantsToBeFree: Kirk and Oscar are puzzled over why three movie studio bosses were invited to the showing of Maria's screen test. Harry tells them that he invited them, and the reason is that if Maria refuses to sign with Kirk, and Kirk then tries to wreck her reputation--part of Kirk's standard modus operandi when someone pisses him off--the other studio bigwigs will know that she is awesome.
27	* ItAlwaysRainsAtFunerals: A suitably grim mood for Maria's funeral.
28	* KnightInSourArmor: A part Bogart had been playing at least since ''Film/{{Casablanca}}''. Here, Harry is a cynical DeadpanSnarker but also one who platonically loves Maria and will fight for her.
29	* LadyDrunk: Myrna, the bitter, drunken actress who hangs around Kirk and seems willing to accept his contempt and abuse. She tells Harry that the reason she sticks with Kirk is that she is a "frightened tramp".
30	* TheLoinsSleepTonight: The loins sleep ''forever'' for Vincenzo, since his groin injury suffered in combat [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in 1942]]. Vincenzo keeps this nugget of info to himself until ''after'' he and Maria are married.
31	* MarriageOfConvenience: Maria genuinely loves Vincenzo, but he admits privately to his sister that his attraction to her is because their family line is ending (his sister is infertile and widowed, and he is impotent) and she would make one last, final, beautiful and stylish countess for which the family will be remembered by. His sister upbraids him for leading Maria on and using her as an object, as she's a real woman with real feelings, but it's not enough to dissuade Vincenzo.
32	* MomentKiller: In his first meeting with Maria, Harry has to become one to talk with her because she and a man from the audience are busy making out in her dressing room closet. Harry eventually gets Maria's attention by saying "Senorita, your bare feet are showing."
33	* MostWritersAreWriters: Harry Dawes, the main narrator, is a writer and director of movies.
34	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Mankiewicz later said that the Maria-Vincenzo thing was inspired by Creator/RitaHayworth's marriage to Prince Aly Khan. Predatory oil magnate turned film producer Kirk Edwards was inspired by Creator/HowardHughes.
35	* OverlyNervousFlopSweat: Oscar the publicist. When Oscar gives Maria the hard sell about signing a contract with Kirk, Maria is repulsed, describing Oscar to Harry as "the man with sweat on his face." Later Oscar has to wipe the flop sweat off of his face when he quits his job with Kirk.
36	* PietaPlagiarism: Harry cradles Maria's body after Vincenzo shoots her to death.
37	* PosthumousCharacter: Considering that the movie starts with Maria's funeral...
38	* PrefersGoingBarefoot: Maria does not care for shoes and prefers to go barefoot. She does this several times, like when she goes off with Harry, or when she goes off with the Count, or when she insists on posing barefoot for her statue.
39	* PrettyInMink: Maria's film premiere outfit includes a fluffy white fox stole, giving her a classic movie star look.
40	* ProtagonistTitle: ''The Barefoot Contessa'' refers to Maria, the protagonist, who PrefersGoingBarefoot and becomes a ''contessa'' after her marriage with Vincenzo.
41	* PrivateEyeMonologue: Bogart was most known for this, but in this movie, all the point-of-view characters--Harry, Oscar, Alberto, and Vincenzo--all talk like this as they narrate their experiences with Maria.
42	* ProfessionalButtKisser: Oscar the publicist. He is an obsequious servant for Kirk Edwards, praising him to the skies to Maria despite not actually liking him at all. When he hires on with Alberto, Oscar is just as obsequious, giving up his umbrella to Alberto at Maria's funeral.
43	* RecoveredAddict: Harry is a recovered alcoholic. He has stopped drinking for five months when he meets Maria for the first time.
44	* SexySweaterGirl: Among the cornucopia of {{Fanservice}} outfits Gardner wears in this movie is an arresting tight-sweater ensemble for the scene where Maria is flamenco dancing with some [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Gypsies]].
45	* ShoutOut:
46	** In Madrid, Harry compares Kirk to Myth/{{Faust}}.
47	** Maria's story is regularly compared to Literature/{{Cinderella}}'s.
48	* StageName: Maria Vargas becomes Maria D'Amata after she is signed on.
49	* StartsWithTheirFuneral: The film begins with Maria's sad funeral, before the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks.
50	* SympatheticAdulterer: Maria cheats on her husband Vincenzo, but it is justified by the fact that he is impotent because of a war wound. As noted, he doesn't mention this until ''after'' the marriage.
51	* ThisIsReality: After Kirk leaves him in the nightclub in Madrid, Harry tells the audience:
52	-->'''Harry:''' A script has to make sense, and life doesn't. Any self-respecting script would have had me [[OffTheWagon swallow Oscar's whisky and go off on a bat]]. But it wasn't a script. Right now, I wish it had been. The script would have made so much more sense about all of us than life did.
53	* TorosYFlamenco: Ah, Spain. A place where you might sometimes go to a nightclub to see a flamenco dancer.
54	* WouldHitAGirl: Kirk the creep smacks Myrna across the face when she mouths off.

Context Film / TheBarefootContessa