United Artists
Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz
My rating: 2.5 stars out of 4
IMDb
(DVD, MGM)
Ava Gardner is a dancer in a rural Spanish cafe. One day she is "discovered" by a group of Hollywood talent scouts, including a rich producer, his press agent and Bogey as a director. She reluctantly agrees to a screen test and eventually becomes a movie star. These early scenes are magical; for example, I love the way director Mankiewicz never shows Gardner dancing, only the reactions of the audience. However, as the film goes along it gets more and more preposterous. Gardner is swept off her feet by a rich Italian and they quickly marry. On her wedding night he reveals he cannot consummate the marriage due to an old war wound. Weeks later he catches her cheating and shoots her dead. There is also an awkward framing device: the entire film is a series of flashbacks and there is at least one instance of a flashback within a flashback. Narration is overused to advance the plot. Despite these shortcomings, it is sumptuously filmed in Technicolor on European locations ranging from Cannes to Rome, and Ava is of course always a pleasure to watch.
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