The Rose Tattoo
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Movie Reviews of The Rose Tattoo
Movie Review: The Movie--not so good--the stars--excellent
Summary: 4 Stars
I wonder how Magnani won the Oscar when so much of her dialogue has been redubbed? Half the time it's her real voice, the rest of the time I guess she spoke so harshly test audiences couldn't understand her, probably Marni Nixon took over. Tennessee Williams wanted to tell the story of how love, once betrayed, can bloom again like a phoennix shot down in flames, if the right man comes along with his hair smelling like roses. I agree with this so watching this movie was like preaching to the converted. Magnani is out of this world, though she looks appalled throughout, as though this was her first glimpse of America and she didn't like what she was seeing, and Burt Lancaster, well, he certainly showed none of the finesse of THE LEOPARD in this role. And yet they say Visconti picked him to be THE LEOPARD based on a hasty screening of this film. He must have seen something in Alvaro's goofiness and sunniness that he thought might be interesting if completely turned around, like the negative to a photograph.
However film fans feast your eyes on the young sailor with whom Marisa Pavan is in love. "Jack Hunter" indeed--notice how Williams inserted the sly sexual pun right in the very heart of his name. Anyhow, Jack is played by the angelic one and only Ben Cooper--be still my heart! Cooper played lots of roles in the 1950s, mostly cowboys and renegades, soldiers, this and that, riffraff parts, sort of a sub-Sterling Hayden kind of guy, but young. Indeed he played "Turkey" alongside Sterling Hayden in the unbelievably Freudian Western JOHNNY GUITAR for Nicholas Ray. Imagine being nicknamed "Turkey," it could only happen in a Nick Ray film. As Jack Hunter, he wears his heart on his sleeve and is the only actor in the film capable of sharing the screen with Magnani without getting his ass kicked. He is totally in possession of the role, that of a red blooded American man who promises not to try to have sex with Marisa Pavan on Magnani's say-so. And yet we still respect him, because he is Ben Cooper. Cooper makes the most of this plum part, probably his best role until his masterwork as the country bumpkin in CHARTROOSE CABOOSE, the country musical with Molly Bee, Edgar Buchanan and Slim Pickens. In that film Ben Cooper and Molly Bee make country music as exciting as tango. He is red hot and The ROSE TATTOO is as good a place as any to make his acquaintance. Ben Cooper, are you still among the living? We have lost so many of the live wires that once made going to the movies fun.
Movie Review: Emotional Performance stands the test of time
Summary: 4 Stars
Anna Magnani's Oscar winning performance sizzles through the decades and retains poignancy. Her organic method creates a believable and sympathetic character. The stereotypical view of Italians however is worse than the Soprano's. We even enjoyed second viewing with my 82-year-old father who said that Ms. Magnani's portrayal of the Italian immigrant seamstress was an early example of a more naturalistic approach to acting.Movie Review: Viva Anna!
Summary: 4 Stars
Showcase for the volcanic Italian earth goddess Magnani is still potent as she brings primo 50's hunk Lancaster to a boil.
Oscar for Best Actress was well deserved as was the Best Picture nomination.
Movie Review: Wildly uneven but oddly intriguing
Summary: 3 Stars
The great Tennessee Williams has given us many, many timeless works. "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Night Of the Iguana," "Suddenly Last Summer," "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof," "The Glass Menagerie," etc. His plays usually deal with the extremes of the emotional human condition, and "The Rose Tattoo," while not as well known as the above, is no exception; however, due to some problems with casting and direction, it is definitely not timeless. It's shocking to find that it was nominated for the "Best Picture" Oscar for that year.
Italian actress Anna Magnani made her English-speaking film debut in the role of Serafina Della Rosa, and she won a Best Actress Oscar for her work. To be sure, her performance is one that runs the gamut; she opens the film vividly displaying the devotion of a woman who believes her husband hung the moon. She is equally believable as the seamstress dealing with demanding customers, the wife mourning her husband's untimely death, the recluse who can't face the world without him, the overprotective mother who will barely let her daughter out of her sight, the furious Sicilian widow seeking revenge on the woman who soiled her marriage in adultery, and as the joyous middle-aged lady who is ready to live again. Few roles have as much range as this one, and Signora Magnani handles every nuance beautifully.
Obviously I have other problems with the film, which is directed in an often quite pedestrian manner, with characters wrongly out of focus and shots framed with a stationary camera so that the actors have to walk into the static shot. The story often shoots off in so many directions at the same time that one cannot follow the narrative, simply because the narrative is badly confused and in terrible need of being tightened up. "The Rose Tattoo" won another Oscar for Best B&W Cinematography, which mainly tells me that there must have been few B&W films released in 1955.
But worst of all is Burt Lancaster, horribly miscast as a Sicilian immigrant. He doesn't look the part, sound the part, or act the part. He is comic relief, played most broadly, and his attempts to steal the scenes are most unwelcome. Bouncing off the walls in his undershirt, laughing so loudly and with such physical overplay that one could mistake him for a schizophrenic, Lancaster's performance is ridiculous and distracting in the extreme. I love his work in films like "The Birdman of Alcatraz" and, much later, in "Local Hero," but this is just plain ugly. I think the intent was to lighten up the oppressive tone set by Serafina's extreme mourning, but the film would have been helped immensely by using someone with a lighter touch...and perhaps someone who vaguely resembles a Sicilian.
Movie Review: Little Sicily
Summary: 3 Stars
Tennessee Williams wrote this play for Magnani, so it's no surprise that she shines in this role. Rather than trademark decadence, this South focuses on the Sicilian immigrant experience. The script reads authentically and Magnani's performance lends further credibility to Sicilian views of family, gender roles and honor. Lancaster hasn't been in a goofier or over-acted role, yet his rendering is appropriately clownesque. For once, Williams brings happiness out of the darkness.