Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302023718
Format: Black & White
ISBN: 6302023718
Label: Paramount
Languages: Array
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Release Date: 1998-01-01
Running Time: 117
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: 1955

Customer Rating:
Summary: Waiting For A Sign
Comment: 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 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 Magnini 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.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Painful to Watch Burt
Comment: Burt Lancaster is one of my all-time favorite actors. But it is painful to watch him in this movie. His terrible accent jumps between Sicily and the Bronx. He is "Elmer Gantry" without the proper role or dialogue to match his performance or ability. He is terribly miscast and unconvincing as Alvaro to Anna Magnani's Serafina.

It is no coincidence that for a movie that won three Oscars and received an additional five nominations Lancaster received no recogniton whatsoever from the Academy. He is as convincing an Italian as Donald Trump would be if he tried to act like a modest man.

Magnani won the academy award as Best Actress for her performance in a very bad year for movies (1955). In "The Rose Tattoo" she merely bounces from one emotional outburst to the next, screaming and yelling in each scene. She brings no nuance or subtlety to the character. Marisa Pavan, who plays her daughter, does. Her character's struggle to find love while dealing with an irrational, raging mother brings out a genuine sweetness in her performance.

Magnani's performance with Marlon Brando in "The Fugitive Kind" (1959) is far superior to this one. In that movie, as the long suffering wife, she is sublime and sensual. Her character's strong emotional longings are barely concealed beneath the surface until Brando walks into her life and ignites them.

Either the writing, direction, or both in "The Rose Tatoo" prevent Magnani from exhibiting the dynamic acting ability displayed in the later movie. But Burt, it hurt to watch you in a role you never should have taken, no matter how bad the dialogue.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Marvelous!
Comment: The writing, directing, and Anna Magnani's acting were superb. Burt Lancaster was miscast--he definitely didn't carry the nuance and intonation of a Sicilian truck driver, yet he still expressed many of the lines with verve and delight. There are no words to express the level of feeling and understanding Magnani brought to her role--truly magical and magnificent! So much of human nature is revealed in this beutifully crafted film. It's one you can see many times, never tire of, because it has the stamp of genius and masterpiece written all over it.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Rose Tattoo
Comment: 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.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Big disappointment
Comment: When I ordered, I couldn't find the region it was compatible for. Now I can't watch it because it can't be watched in Europe.

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