Excellent, a Must See

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Francois Truffaut was dead right. This is a superb film--structurewise and contentwise. Way ahead of its time. And Ava Gardner is stunning. My father's favourite film. Cinderella+che sera, sera is a lovely combination for Director Manckiewicz to use for developing an original screenplay. Jack Cardiff's cinematography is intelligent. One goof: one could not understand how the director and cinematogrpher allowed the funeral scene with Bogart standing bareheaded in the rain without his hair getting wet. The umbrellas were dripping. Deserved to win the Oscar for best screenplay for which it was nominated.

This Director is OK as a director and has directed some great films, but is generally not so good as a writer. This one is spectacularly bad. He did write and direct the very successful "People will talk", but that had originally been written as a play by someone else, so he was really mainly being a director. Also, "Barefoot" was an inside Hollywood story by a Hollywood insider, and so perhaps he lost his objectivity. They say that autobiographies are nearly always bad.

Was really intrigued into seeing 'The Barefoot Contessa'. Joseph L Mankiewicz was responsible for 'All About Eve', which is one of my all time favourite films, and when you have the likes of Ava Gardner, Humphrey Bogart and Edmond O'Brien one does expect a lot.'The Barefoot Contessa' was disappointing. It is a long way from an awful film and has several very good things, but with such a talented cast and a director who was really good when he is in his prime it could have been so much more. Can totally see the polarising reactions on both sides, while 'The Barefoot Contessa' has a good deal to admire (more so than has been given credit for) it is not going to appeal, and has not appealed, to everybody. 1954 saw some great films, 'Rear Window', 'On the Waterfront', 'A Star is Born', 'Sabrina', 'Dial M for Murder', 'White Christmas' and '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea', 'The Barefoot Contessa' to me just isn't in the same league.Starting with what is good about 'The Barefoot Contessa', it looks great visually with beautiful autumnal cinematography and sumptuous costumes and settings, the very meaning of extravagant. The music score from Mario Nascimbene is lush and subtly done. There are some cracking lines and there is evidence of sincerity. Was very surprised at how daring and ahead of its time it was.Ava Gardner lives up to her glamorous "the world's most beautiful animal" image and character and is positively luminous and graceful, she is very much in her prime here. Late-career Humphrey Bogart, rightly regarded as a cultural icon who died far too soon (only three years later), is as commanding as ever and not only the best actor in the cast but also one of the film's strongest elements. Edmond O'Brien is deliciously oily and in his best moments on dynamite form. Warren Stevens is very good too.Rossano Brazzi was the weak link however in the cast, his role has little if anything to it and the only thing Brazzi brings to it is handsome looks, everywhere else he's very wooden and dull. Mankiewicz really is not at his best in the directing, he delivers on the style but elsewhere it's pedestrian and uninspired.His writing fares even weaker, despite some moments of sincerity and cracking lines the acerbic wit that sparkled in 'All About Eve' four years earlier does not come through enough. Most of the film is too talky and rambling, as well as overwrought, flimsy and too rehearsed. The thin and sometimes muddled story does suffer from dull pacing that rarely fires on all cylinders and an overlong length, and feels both overblown as a result of being overwritten and bland due to the lack of depth to the writing and characterisation. Despite the great efforts of the cast the characters are under-explored and don't have much to allow us to connect properly with them.Overall, beautiful but uneven. 5.5-6/10 Bethany Cox

The movie starts with the funeral of a relatively young woman. Her story is told in flashbacks. You keep watching because you want to know how and why she died.She is not a particularly interesting person, more a china bust with a frozen smile. She is supposedly a spectacular dancer but does only one rather embarrassing dance routine that reminded me of my mother dancing when drunk.She is surrounded by interesting people e.g. screenwriter Harry Dawes, played by a very mellow and likable Humphrey Bogart.Kirk Edwards is a gum chewing billionaire, who makes his life miserable by bullying everyone just for the fun of it.Alberto Bravano is a South American tycoon, who is perfectly candid about his own selfishness. His honesty and lack of hypocrisy makes him extremely charming.The movie makes clear how wealth and fame can most of the time get in the way of happiness. It shows how they seduce and corrupt. It pokes fun at the airhead wealthy who descend on the Riviera each year to gamble.The movie also explores jealousy, how pleasant life can be when it is in check and how miserable when it is not.It is a quite slow paced, somewhat boring movie. Not much happens. It just meanders around to its rather surprising conclusion.