Review of The Rose Tattoo (1955) by I Don't Know W — 29 Jan 2011

A Tennessee Williams adaptation which, while good, doesn't hold a candle to the brilliant screenplay drama nor the acting passion of "Streetcar..." Anna Magnani won the Oscar for her performance of a Italian widow on the Mississippi coast. After three years, she still remains house bound in mourning to a passionate criminal with a rose tattoo on his chest. She brings the truth of anything you would expect to see from a sad Sicilian old woman, but it is Anna's first English-role and she is admittedly a little hard to understand.

She raises a teenage daughter with too tight an iron grip, and the daughter eventually rebels with a young and naive sailor. After basically losing her daughter she meets Burt Lancaster, a hardbody working man who's too stupid to be taken seriously. Does she let her guard down or does she leave him broken? When Burt joins at the 51:00 mark, the whole mood of the film changes. Becomes a little goofy, a little romantic. The difference threw me out a little bit. Thus the three stars.