THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA
1954,
Park Circus ,
128 min,
United States,
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz returns to the show business milieu of ALL ABOUT EVE for this story of a filmmaker (Humphrey Bogart, playing a slightly modified version of Mankiewicz himself) who discovers a peasant girl (Ava Gardner) dancing in a nightclub and transforms her into a star. Before long Bogart falls in love with his creation, but his possessiveness and the pressures of stardom send her frantically looking for an escape.