A fascinating companion piece to All About Eve, The Barefoot Contessa substitutes Hollywood for Broadway to again offer an alternately affectionate and savage satire of show business and a variation of Mankiewicz's grand theme of the theater as life. Refracted through a dizzying flashback structure, The Barefoot Contessa's cautionary fairy tale about fantasies made unexpectedly real derives a feverish, dream-like quality from the luminous presence of Ava Gardner as an aloof seductress and from Jack Cardiff's inventive Technicolor cinematography. Acknowledged by Fellini as a major influence on La Dolce Vita, Mankiewicz's late masterpiece is similarly drawn to the moonlit, mirrored villas of the European jet set. In the last great role of his storied career Humphrey Bogart exudes a poignant vulnerability as a stand-in for Mankiewicz himself, an aging screenwriter-director kindling a jaded yet still ardent love of movie magic. – HG