The Rose Tattoo
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Movie Reviews of The Rose Tattoo
Movie Review: Waiting For A Sign
Summary: 5 Stars
The first couple of paragraphs here have been used as introduction to other plays written by Tennessee Williams and reviewed in this space. This review applies to both the stage play and the film versions with differences noted as part of the review
Perhaps, as is the case with this reviewer, if you have come to the works of the excellent American playwright Tennessee Williams through adaptations of his plays to commercially distributed film you too will have missed some of the more controversial and intriguing aspects of his plays that had placed him at that time along with Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller as America's finest serious playwrights. Although some of the films have their own charms I want to address the written plays in this entry first (along with, when appropriate, commentary about Williams' extensive and detailed directing instructions).
That said, there are certain limitations for a political commentator like this reviewer on the works of Williams. Although his plays, at least his best and most well-known ones, take place in the steamy South or its environs, there is virtually no acknowledgement of the race question that dominated Southern life during the period of the plays; and, for that matter was beginning to dominate national life. Thus, although it is possible to pay homage to his work on its artistic merits, I am very, very tentative about giving fulsome praise to that work on its political merits. With that proviso Williams nevertheless has created a very modern stage on which to address social questions at the personal level like homosexuality, incest and the dysfunctional family that only began to get addressed widely well after his ground-breaking work hit the stage.
"The Rose Tattoo" is a little different look at the dysfunctional family. Although the geography of the play is still the American South this play is not peopled with Williams' usually WASPy characters but rather a little conclave of immigrant Italians who have somehow made a beachhead in the Gulf Coast area. The central character is a previously abandoned but now widowed Italian seamstress trying to survive, mainly through her hopes for her daughter, on her wits, her memories of youth, her integrity and her fierce instinct to survive in alien territory. A philandering husband, the obsessive subject of her adoration, a daughter trying to learn to fly on her own in the love game, and an incidental encounter with a fellow, younger Italian truck driver come together to give her the sign she needs to start over. Maybe. This play, more than most of Williams' efforts, depends on the strength of the dialogue and not the plotline. That is what gives its dramatic edge as Williams explores yet another tangled up dream gone awry story.
In the movie version, the role of the young Italian truck driver as played by Burt Lancaster and the seamstress as played by the fabulous Anna Magnani is more central to the unfolding story from the beginning. The dramatic tensions between this pair and the `waiting for a sign' by the seamstress are still fairly similar. It is however Lancaster's enhanced role that really makes this a visual treat and gives one hope that this new family `aborning' can survive.
Movie Review: Man...What a Show !!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Let me set the scene of when I first saw this 1955 Masterpiece. The year was 1973 and it was a Saturday Night at the US Merchant Marine Training Center (Lundenberg School of Seamanship) at Piney Point,MD. I was a 19 year old Seaman going through training. A movie was shown on Saturday night in the Rec Hall. This night I was lucky enough to be able to attend the show and view real Hollywood history."The Rose Tattoo"...what a movie. Being a vintage movie buff even at the young age of 19 I did not know what a great treat that I was in for.
My God when that movie started playing I thought I was in Little Italy back in Baltimore City. Burt Lancaster was over the top...but when Sarafina DelleRosa took the stage she was untouchable!!!Her acting and motions were like nothing ever seen on the Silver Screen before. What a performance (note how she goes through the motions and grief when she explains about her husband and the Rose Tattoo on his chest to Lancaster).
When her daughter Rosa brings the young Seaman Jack Hunter home and they tell Sarafina that they want to be married she had them kneel down in front of a statue of the Blessed Virgin and pray. At that scene I remember one of the guys shouted out "Who in the hell orders these damn movies - he should be shot!". You must remember this was '73 and all those hippies and heads with their mops and faces shaved wearing a USMM uniform were not all happy campers and they found excuses to complain about anything...even a five star vintage movie - enough said.
This is a great movie that really holds you to your seat and takes you down an ethnic road into the lives of several old world Italian Gems.This is one movie that will ever be hard to beat. After watching it 35 years ago on that Saturday night in the Rec Hall I was sold for life.In no way does this flick make any fun of the Italian People but project them as a proud and proper group as they really are!
"Enjoy" Joe Kopeck - Parkville,MD by way of the Merchant Marine!!!
Movie Review: Only Anna Magnani and her face are right for this role
Summary: 5 Stars
I remember reading that this role was written for her. I caught this film accidentally years ago and I was delighted. The acting and the story are adult and complex. The two leads really play off each other well. Burt Lancaster may be the one American actor I actually like and find earthily delicious. At least, he's the only one that comes to mind. Angelics like James Stewart and Gregory Peck are lovely but Burt is just cool. I'm not interested in seeing From Here to Eternity because Deborah Kerr's lips look too thin to be kissing Burt's and I expected more from Sweet Smell of Success. For me, this movie is a sure thing.Movie Review: Life portrayed
Summary: 5 Stars
I absolutely adore this movie.Burt Lancaster is so different than in most of his roles that I have seen him in as the bumbling truck driver who just wants to please the beautiful lady.My mother and her sisters are of Italian decent and even look and act as tempormental as she does so when I watch this it's kind of like watching a family reunion.The story is superb of the mother letting the daughter grow up and choose her own way.Real life.Wonderfully portrayed.Movie Review: The Rose Tattoo
Summary: 5 Stars
Magnani was already an international star when lured to Hollywood to do this sterling adaptation of Tennessee Williams's play. The earthy, fiery Italian actress inhabits the central role of Serafina like a second skin. Magnani's powerfully expressive face betrays the conflicting emotions of a proud but wounded woman facing the prospect--and attendant risks--of new love. Though Lancaster is miscast as Alvaro, he wins points for spirit and effort.