A movie by Joseph Mankiewicz. The hasbeen movie director Harry Dawes, played by Humphrey Bogart, is hired by the filthy rich producer Kirk Edwards to direct a movie. They go to Madrid to find a new face, and they find the gypsy dancer Maria Vargas, played by Ava Gardner. Her first movies are very successful, yet quickly she is disgusted of the rich producer, and she goes to another rich man, and is still unsatisfied. Finally she meets the Italian Count Vincenzo Torlato-Favrini, who decides she would make a great contessa...

The most interesting aspect of this picture is the portrait of "The world's most beautiful animal", as the movie's tagline calls Ava Gardner. She can only dance when barefooted... And her deepest dream is that of finding the charming prince. Yet the description of life in Hollywood or in the Riviera is very funny, and the dialogues are very good. In the movie, Bogart might be representing Mankiewicz as the director who has been making movies for "longer than he wants to remember".