Ava Gardner: La Diosa Descalza/ The Barefoot Goddess (Spanish Edition) [Hardcover]

Juan C. Prats (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 207 pages
• Publisher: Ediciones Jc Clementine (September 30, 2000)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 8495121123
• ISBN-13: 978-8495121127
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 8.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,529,966 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great photobook on the Grabtown Goddess that needs an English translation, August 9, 2007

By 

Joseph A. Admire (Manassas, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Ava Gardner: La Diosa Descalza/ The Barefoot Goddess (Spanish Edition) (Hardcover)

Being in the middle of working my way through Lee Server's terrific _Love Is Nothing_ (which I plan to review once I've finished it), I was eager to get ahold of a photo retrospective on the lovely Ava. Gilles Dagneau's _Ava Gardner: The Rebel_ is currently unavailable on Amazon, so this book was Plan B.

The reviewer ought to know, first of all, that this book is in Spanish, published in Spain. No serious fan of Ava Gardner should be surprised at that; Ava fell in love with the country and its culture when she went there to do "Pandora and the Flying Dutchman", and even more so when she shot "The Barefoot Contessa" (this book's title literally means "the barefoot goddess"; Ava, like her "Contessa" character, loved going barefoot all her life). Therefore, if you don't read Spanish, you're necessarily going to miss out on the book's text, which is why I say it needs to be published in an English-language version.

However, the photos are terrific, and there are hundreds of them, from all stages of Ava's life and career, in color and B&W; the book is oversized, so you get a lot of gorgeous full-page imagery. The chapters are broken out mostly by each individual film that Ava had a role in over the years; while most of them are listed by their Spanish titles, any fan with a good knowledge of her movies ought to be able to identify them immediately, especially as each chapter has several pictures from the movie in question.

If only this book were in English, I could probably give it a full 5 stars. As it is, the superb photos, many of which don't appear in any English-language book on Ava to date, well justify a 4-star rating and a recommendation to all devoted Ava fans.