The Barefaced Contessa

A mother and daughter, Jean and Isabella Di Cesare, are staging a fashion show on board a boat and taking money for the dresses that they are exhibiting. But they have no intention of delivering – it is all a scam. They are also planning to stitch up Ken.

CBS are proving the security at a charity antiques auction at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire. Ken is expecting Jean to arrive soon. Jean is one of Ken’s old flames: Harry’s ex-wife had once described them as “the Siamese twins – joined at the lips”. However Jean left Ken ten years ago and later married an Italian Count, Vincenzo Di Cesare.

Jean and Isabella are being followed by a scruffy man in an even scruffier car. Jean tells Ken that she has recently left the Count because he was beating her up. She bought her sports car with the money that she took when she left the Count, but now he is claiming that the car belongs to him. He wants it back and is threatening to get violent. Isabella is also being followed by Enzo, a “lovesick Italian baker” whom she met through a dating agency that Jean used to run.

Jean goes to stay with Ken and they are soon re-kindling their former passion, as typified by the scene where they make toast while miming along to music from Carmen!

When Harry suggests that Jean might have ulterior motives for contacting Ken, he refuses to listen. However he wants Harry to keep an eye on Isabella, in case the Count tries to harm her. Harry follows her to the bank, where Enzo roughly bundles her into the car and drives her back to the hotel. He evidently has some hold over her. The scruffy man is still snooping around and trying to break into Jean and Isabella’s car. When Harry challenges him, he learns that the man’s name is Jerry Owens and that he works for a debt-collecting agency, repossessing the car for the company that they hired it from. Jerry also tells Harry that Jean and Isabella are known to be con-artists and have been credit-blacklisted under thirty different aliases.

Harry breaks the news to Ken, who is gutted but steadfastly refuses to believe that it might be true. Jean is beginning to have second thoughts about conning any money out of Ken. After a change of heart, she refuses to go through with the scheme that she and Isabella had planned. She goes back to Ken and confesses to him. She says she wants to put her dishonest past behind her and live with him. Ken gets all maudlin and admits that he always messes up his relationships with women. They end up in bed. It looks as if they are going to get back together permanently.

Back at the hotel, Enzo and Isabella are making plans to elope. However when Ken and Jean return, she quickly bundles him out of the room and then pretends that he is working for the Count and is threatening to turn violent unless she gives him £5000. Without Jean knowing, Ken offers to get the money for Isabella. This is all part of her cunning plan which she alone is responsible for, now that Jean has backed out.

Ken reluctantly asks Rocky to sell his beloved ‘White Lighting’ motorbike to raise the cash, which Rocky describes as “like the Lone Ranger selling Tonto”. Harry and Rocky hide the bike and Harry withdraws the money from his bank account. Ken gives it to Isabella. Jean feels disgusted with the way she has treated Ken and knows that he would never be able to trust her again. After several attempts to write a farewell note to him, she leaves a poignant message on his answerphone. Now that Jean has jilted Ken and Isabella has jilted Enzo, they drive off from the hotel. They are stopped by Harry and Jerry Owens. Harry demands the money from Isabella (which Jean knew nothing about) and Jerry repossesses the car.

Ken is feeling very sorry for himself back at his house, when Harry turns up with a trailer containing... ‘White Lightning’.

Jean left Ken only ten years ago. Isabella appears to be in her early twenties, so who is her father? Despite her surname, she is evidently not the Count’s daughter (by a previous marriage) because she refers to Jean as “Mother”.

The title of this episode is presumably a reference to the 1954 Joseph L Mankiewicz film “The Barefoot Contessa”, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner.

Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, was used as the location for the auction in this episode.

Quotes

Notes and episode list © Martin Underwood, 1999

Page last modified: 17 December 2008, 23:48