CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

pointyfilippa The movie runs out of plot and jokes well before the end of a two-hour running time, long for a light comedy.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Red-125 The Rose Tattoo (1955) was directed by Daniel Mann. It's based on a play by Tennessee Williams, who also wrote the screenplay. It stars Anna Magnani as Serafina Delle Rose, a Sicilian dressmaker now living in Louisiana. (Actually filmed in Florida.)One drawback to the film is the miscasting of Burt Lancaster as Alvaro Mangiacavallo, a man who falls in love with Magnani. Lancaster was a good actor, but he's not good enough to convince us he's Sicilian. The second drawback is that the movie has "adapted from a play" written all over it. Director Mann shows us a police chase, a beach scene, and a trip to a church and to a gambling casino in an attempt to "open up" the play into a movie. It just doesn't work. It's unmistakably 1950's Broadway melodrama.However, there was more that was positive than was negative about this movie. Marisa Pavan as Serafina's daughter--Rosa Delle Rose--does a good job. It's an important supporting role, and Pavan excelled in it. (She also looked as if she could be Magnani's daughter.) The important point is that Magnani is wonderful, and the movie works because of her. Magnani was traditionally beautiful as a young actor, and, at age 47, she was still beautiful. However, she was no longer traditionally beautiful. Instead, she has a presence or aura that makes you want to look at her every moment that she's on the screen. She is a force of nature. Director Mann knew this about Magnani, and the great cinematographer James Wong Howe knew how to present this force to us. (I don't usually mention cinematographers in my IMDb reviews, but James Wong Howe won an Oscar for his cinematography in this film.)If you want to see a talented actor, at the full height of her powers, see Anna Magnani in The Rose Tattoo! That's not just my opinion--Magnani won an Oscar for her work in this movie.We saw this film on DVD, and it did well on the small screen. It's a great movie and a piece of cinema history. Find it and see it.

lasttimeisaw This is the screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams' namesake play which opened on Broadway in 1951, originally is tailor-made for Magnani, but she rejected it then due to her inadequate English expertise; four years later, she shoulders on this film version helmed by theatrical old hand Daniel Mann, which substantially lives up to everyone's expectation and is crowned as BEST LEADING ACTRESS in the Oscar competition, the film also earns two other wins for BEST ART DIRECTION and BEST BLACK & WHITE CINEMATOGRAPHY for the legendary Chinese-American cinematographer James Wong Howe out of a total 8 nominations.Magnani plays Serafina, an immigrant from Sicily to America to marry with Rosario Delle Rose, an Italian man with a baron lineage, but now is merely a truck driver hauling bananas. They have a fifteen-year-old daughter Rosa (Paven), and Magnani is pregnant with a second child, but an accident soon kills Rosario and it turns out he is engaged in transporting some illegal commodities, what's more devastating, rumour says he had an affair with another woman Estelle (Grey). Indulged in the mourning of her husband and refuses to accept the truth, Serafina has a miscarriage, strains arise between Serafina and the rest of the people in their close-knitted Italian neighbourhood, also with Rosa,who meets a sailor Jack (Cooper) in her high school graduation prom, and they hit it off immediately. Later another young truck driver Alvaro (Lancaster) barges into her life, so can Serafina finally be liberated from past memories and brave a new romance? A hint, THE ROSE TATTOO has a comedic vibrancy which rarely prevails in Tennessee Williams' works. The title refers to the rose tattoo on Rosario's chest, a symbol of carnal temptation which lingers in Serafina's memory after her husband is gone, and not until she meets Alvaro, a young body particularly resembles her dead husband, does she tentatively open up to him and their budding romance is quite a burlesque as they play off a typical forward-man- versus-reserved-woman stunt, until Alvaro bares his chest to show her a rose tattoo, an impending danger seems to be enveloping them even in the film's most farcical set piece, one constantly fears the story would steer to the opposite direction in a jiffy.Magnani commands such a towering impersonation as she brilliantly alternates between attention-grabbing melodrama and outlandish hysteria with effortless artistry, the story is so Italian, and Magnani represents the exemplary virtue of an Italian mother, hot-blooded, honest to her feelings, sensuously attractive but never demeans herself to be flirtatious, and extremely protective towards her child. Lancaster only emerges in the latter half of the film, but shines in his unusually comedic slapstick; Marisa Pavan who also receives an Oscar nomination, unfortunately pales into insignificance by Magnani as a disobedient daughter with an overfamiliar agency on her plate. James Wong Howe's low-key camera faithfully serves to introduce all the movements of the characters, hones up the fluency and consistency of the story without being obtrusive or self-aware. By and large, THE ROSE TATTOO is a potent drama galvanises with a more buoyant flare rather different from Tennessee Williams' customarily neurotic fashioning.

spammyas Burt Lancaster's character is the grandson of a Sicilian village's idiot, who raped his grandmother. He happily shares this information with Anna Magnani's character and it helps explain why he is such a BUFFOON. As she notes, he has the body of her hunky beloved husband and the head of of a clown. Attracted to him sexually, she really has to work to get past what an idiot he is, but she manages. The photograph on the cover of the DVD captures her revulsion and desire. Burt Lancaster is well cast in that his physique and athleticism are prominently featured, in counterpoint to the mindlessly happy, drunken, emotional truck driver he plays. A favorite scene is when he is perched atop a mast, singing "happy bird, happy bird," being a complete simpleton and yet being powerfully attractive as he gracefully descends. It's obvious Burt Lancaster is an athlete and an acrobat and a really good actor. The developing relationship between Anna's character and Burt's is the most interesting aspect of this film. Her reactions to him are funny, believable, understandable.

kyle_furr This wasn't as good as Come Back, Little Sheba which was also directed by Daniel Mann and starring Burt Lancaster. This one stars Anna Magnani in her first English film and she won an oscar for it. It stars out with her husband being killed in a car accident and she becomes very depressed. Three years later and her daughter has started dating. They are Italian and she doesn't like her daughter dating a navy boy. She gets even more depressed when she finds out that her husband was having an affair and she has a rose tattoo just like him. She meets Burt Lancaster, a lonely truck driver who wants to date Magnani. This was written by Tennessee Williams but this wasn't one of his best plays.