Featured Movies
Partners
Fine Bogart and Gardner outing
This film has always been a favourite of mine, very much of its period (1954) in lush Technicolor told in flashbacks with a lot of wonderful Bogart voice over.
Bogart dominates the film as the cynical director Harry Dawes who makes Maria Vargas (Gardner) into a super star. Gardner’s part plays to her cool screen goddess type persona and is well partnered by Bogart who is cynical but caring. I find Brazzi’s admired performance as the Count somewhat cool. Good acting all round particularly Edmund O’Brien won an Oscar for his role as the sweaty publicist. Oh, the bare feet, they belong to a double Margo Lorenze who did a similar service for Gardner in “The Little Hut”. Mankiewicz directed and wrote this cautious expose of the film industry possibly inhibited by the rigid censorship of the time. |
