The Rose Tattoo

This is my favorite movie of all time. I think the performance by Anna Magnanni, Marisa Pavan and the rest of the cast were superb. I have lived in Key West for the past 40 years and during that time I have watched the movie many times. All of the locations/scenes shot in the movie are still intact. Serafina's home is still a residence here, the grocery store where she shopped is still here (as a private residence), the Catholic church she attended (in reality it is Episcopal) is still here, the school where the dance took place is still a school here, and the bar scene is still here. When you visit Key West, you can feel the mood and ambiance of the movie even today and the characters from the film seem to come to life. I realize that it was supposed to take place in New Orleans. However, it was a stroke of good luck/genius that it was filmed here in Key West (Tennessee's home is still here) and the story, the film and the memories of the filming are still very much alive here. When you come here take a moment and see if you don't agree.

An Italian-American neighborhood in Louisiana is disturbed when truck driver Rosario Delle Rose is killed by police while smuggling. His buxom widow Serafina miscarries, then over a period of years draws more and more into herself, trying to force her lovely teenaged daughter Rosa to do likewise. Anna Magnani won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and it also won Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography and received five other nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting actress for Marisa Pavan. Magnani was apparently hand-picked by Tennessee Williams. I can't say I enjoyed her very much, but clearly Williams was right, or at least knew who was right to impress the Academy. I was surprised by the tattoo theme, especially since early on a woman is shown getting one. This was certainly not the norm in the 1950s. And tattoos were only $2.50? Wow. Even with inflation, that's a steal.

Unfortunately, for Susan Hayward, by 1955 Anna Magnani thought that her English was up to task to play in "The Rose Tattoo." She would go on to win all the major acting awards that year including the Academy Award as best actress. I never forgave Magnani for winning. I always believed that Susan Hayward deserved the honor for "I'll Cry Tomorrow." Magnani goes from a hysterical widow who throws objects around to a woman of lust, who is enamored by a simple truck driver played by Burt Lancaster. It is true that the Magnani showed tremendous changes in emotion in her Oscar winning performance. Well, maybe there should have been a tie.

source: The Rose Tattoo

Anna Magnani is the only actress that I have seen that is able to actually put her guts into a role. Unfortunately, and no pun intended, Anna put so much of herself in her acting career that she died of pancreatic cancer. But you have to say if you ever sa this movie or even the others like Wild Is The Wind, you see an actress that surpasses the script. Anna lives her role as if she is there and there is no separation from Anna and Serafina Della Rose. You can tell that Anna has lived her part and her life by the bags under her eyes, but she holds nothing back, nothing. This kind of actress (not even Streep in Bridges of Madisson County where she played an Italian woman) can explode like Anna. In Rose Tatoo you see a woman who is utterly destroyed by the death of her husband, you see it, you feel it along with her. You also experience the mourning with Anna shamelessly wallowing in self-pity and depression, not wanting to live because her "rose" of a husband has been removed from her life. Her baron. Then we experience the disbelief when Serafina finds out that her Baron, her rose had been unfaithful to her. Anna Magnani expresses her joy, her sadness, her anger, her suspicion and her grief with such authenticity, you cannot help but see this movie over and over and over again, because it is so real. There were great things happening in 1955, first, I was born and then there was The Rose Tattoo.

We can always count on Tennessee Williams to give us an engrossing tale of love, lust, loss, betrayal, sexual frustration, and jealousy. Anna Magnani's corrosive performance absolutely dominates this film, which works well in black & white (the overheated emotions seem to leap out of the b&w more starkly than they would out of color); you can't take your eyes off her - it's like watching a train wreck. She makes this insecure, emotionally frightened, self-deluded, yet domineering woman a sympathetic figure in the end. Burt Lancaster is a bit over the top, but the role calls for it. A fascinating aspect is the parallel development of the daughter's budding sexuality with the release of her mother's long-suppressed yearnings. Those fascinated by Magnani here should catch her working with Anthony Quinn in "The Secret of Santa Vittoria", made just four years before her death. Once again, thank you American Movie Classics for bringing us this fine film.

This film has to be one that I like to pull out of the video rack at least 2 times a month and watch. Burt Lancaster is at his best being a funny unemployed drunk who is in love with a big busted Italian female who has lost her husband when he was running drugs in the back of his truck. When she loses her husband, that's when Lancaster enters her life and he is a real gas to watch as he is a poor immigrant. Good movie, see it as soon as possible...

I very much enjoy old movies. This movie is very good. Anna is amazing and passionate. Burt Lancaster was lighthearted and funny. They just don't make films like these any more, it is a classic. You don't notice the surroundings of the movie, you notice the acting. This film is very much worth the full two hours it will take to view it.

After hearing about this movie for years I finally saw it in its entirety. What a disappointment!! Burt Lancaster is a character who claims to be the grandchild of the village idiot and whose behavior proves that genetics is a science. His acting is so hackneyed and stereotypical as to be ludicrous and embarrassing. Anna Magnani is over-the-top but sympathetic as the grieving widow who is holding a torch for her husband long after his torch is out. The behavior of the townspeople is more like the inhabitants of a small town in Sicily as filmed by Fellini than the residents of a small town in Louisiana which they are supposed to be. Marisa Pavan is subdued and lovely but interchangeable.

This film was rated very high in our movie guide, but the film techniques which may have been revolutionary, when it came out, were ineffective and the acting often trite.