Lovers of the well-delivered insult and dialogue to make Oscar Wilde envious will rejoice in The Barefoot Contessa, the film Fellini claimed as an inspiration for La Dolce Vita. Regal Ava Gardner is discovered in a Madrid nightclub by a loosely moraled Hollywood tycoon (supposedly modeled on Howard Hughes) and a cynical director (a where's-my-gin Humphrey Bogart). Bursting into stardom, she joins a world of caviar, casinos, and speedboats filled with the international rich, but still seeks something more from life. “I don't think there can ever be an excess of good talk,” claimed Mankiewicz, and The Barefoot Contessa bears that belief out even more than his earlier classic All About Eve. Slamming aristocrats, the nouveaux riches, and the Hollywood elite with equal aplomb, Mankiewicz's script sparkles with a wit as furious as it is memorable, his words as vivid as the film's three-strip Technicolor that has now been restored to its full glory.