Anna Magnani was a larger-than-life stage actress in Italy. She also made a number of Italian films (most notably "Belissima," "The Golden Coach," and "The Open City") and four feature films in English. In the first, playing the fiery (volcanic?) Sicilian Serafina in "The Rose Tattoo" (a role that Tennessee Williams wrote for her, though she felt that her English was not up to doing the role live on stage), she won an Academy Award (etc.).

As is common in Tennessee Williams works, Serafina has to overcome illusions or delusions to have a chance for some happiness. Serafina's illusions center on her dead husband. She very reluctantly accepts that he was carrying contraband when he died after crashing through a highway roadblock and trying to evade a patrol car chasing his truck, but is certain that she was his great and only love. Even before his death drive, the audience has reason to believe that he is two-timing her, but her cult of his love completely engulfs her when she becomes a widow.

The information about who her husband's mistress was is thrown up at her in a spirit of utter spite. Denying this sacrilege snaps her out of a deep depression, and her explosion upon being told what had been going on is eclipsed by her explosion at the woman. She also explodes at her daughter's suitor (an innocuous sailor) and at a not-very-bright suitor Alvaro (whom she likens to a clown with her husband's hunky body and rose tattoo), played by Burt Lancaster.

Considering how over-the-top Magnani's emoting is, it seems odd to fault Lancaster for overacting. He may have resorted to keep from being completely blown off the screen by Magnani. However, her epic depression and epic explosions are the character's, whereas his excesses don't feel derived from the character but as business to make sure the actor is noticed. I guess it is also that Magnani's Serafina seems vulnerable even when she is exploding, whereas Lancaster's Alvaro seems silly, especially when secretly returning very noisily and drunkenly through neighbors' yards. However, when he puts his acrobatic skills on display, James Wong Howe's photography makes his antics interesting.

The scenes away from Serafina's cottage are also strikingly photographed (except for the sailboat scene of the young lovers, but who cares about them?) by Howe (who won the first of his Oscars; his great work on "Sweet Smell of Success" wasn't even nominated).

I think the movie would have done just fine without the goat that periodically escapes. The daughter in love is necessary as a stimulus to Serafina and (in a very different way) Alvaro. Marisa Pavan, the twin sister of Pier Angeli. won a Golden Globe and received an Oscar nomination for doing not very much in a Natalie Wood kind of role as Rosa, and Ben Cooper did what little his role as her suitor, Jack Cooper, demanded. I think both were too old for the roles, especially Pavan's Rosa, who is supposed to be 15 (and was 22 or 23). The young lovers' dialogue does not ring true, whether the fault is in the lines or the limited acting ability of Pavan and Cooper.

Along with James Wong Howe's cinematography and Anna Magnani's emoting, the musical score by Alex North deserves singling out (it was Oscar nominated, one of the 16 times North was nominated without winning). All in all, "The Rose Tattoo" is a memorable rendition of a fairly simple and upbeat Tennessee Williams play and the best opportunity to see Magnani in English (four years later she was in a screen adaptation of another, darker Tennessee Williams play, "The Fugitive Kind," undercut by Marlon Brando, but still very impressive; she jousted with Anthony Quinn in her other two feature films in English).


Recommended:
Yes