I wonder how Magnani won the Oscar when so much of her dialogue has been redubbed? Half the time it's her real voice, the rest of the time I guess she spoke so harshly test audiences couldn't understand her, probably Marni Nixon took over. Tennessee Williams wanted to tell the story of how love, once betrayed, can bloom again like a phoennix shot down in flames, if the right man comes along with his hair smelling like roses. I agree with this so watching this movie was like preaching to the converted. Magnani is out of this world, though she looks appalled throughout, as though this was her first glimpse of America and she didn't like what she was seeing, and Burt Lancaster, well, he certainly showed none of the finesse of THE LEOPARD in this role. And yet they say Visconti picked him to be THE LEOPARD based on a hasty screening of this film. He must have seen something in Alvaro's goofiness and sunniness that he thought might be interesting if completely turned around, like the negative to a photograph.
However film fans feast your eyes on the young sailor with whom Marisa Pavan is in love. "Jack Hunter" indeed--notice how Williams inserted the sly sexual pun right in the very heart of his name. Anyhow, Jack is played by the angelic one and only Ben Cooper--be still my heart! Cooper played lots of roles in the 1950s, mostly cowboys and renegades, soldiers, this and that, riffraff parts, sort of a sub-Sterling Hayden kind of guy, but young. Indeed he played "Turkey" alongside Sterling Hayden in the unbelievably Freudian Western JOHNNY GUITAR for Nicholas Ray. Imagine being nicknamed "Turkey," it could only happen in a Nick Ray film. As Jack Hunter, he wears his heart on his sleeve and is the only actor in the film capable of sharing the screen with Magnani without getting his ass kicked. He is totally in possession of the role, that of a red blooded American man who promises not to try to have sex with Marisa Pavan on Magnani's say-so. And yet we still respect him, because he is Ben Cooper. Cooper makes the most of this plum part, probably his best role until his masterwork as the country bumpkin in CHARTROOSE CABOOSE, the country musical with Molly Bee, Edgar Buchanan and Slim Pickens. In that film Ben Cooper and Molly Bee make country music as exciting as tango. He is red hot and The ROSE TATTOO is as good a place as any to make his acquaintance. Ben Cooper, are you still among the living? We have lost so many of the live wires that once made going to the movies fun.
Wildly uneven but oddly intriguing
The great Tennessee Williams has given us many, many timeless works. "A Streetcar Named Desire," "Night Of the Iguana," "Suddenly Last Summer," "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof," "The Glass Menagerie," etc. His plays usually deal with the extremes of the emotional human condition, and "The Rose Tattoo," while not as well known as the above, is no exception; however, due to some problems with casting and direction, it is definitely not timeless. It's shocking to find that it was nominated for the "Best Picture" Oscar for that year.
Italian actress Anna Magnani made her English-speaking film debut in the role of Serafina Della Rosa, and she won a Best Actress Oscar for her work. To be sure, her performance is one that runs the gamut; she opens the film vividly displaying the devotion of a woman who believes her husband hung the moon. She is equally believable as the seamstress dealing with demanding customers, the wife mourning her husband's untimely death, the recluse who can't face the world without him, the overprotective mother who will barely let her daughter out of her sight, the furious Sicilian widow seeking revenge on the woman who soiled her marriage in adultery, and as the joyous middle-aged lady who is ready to live again. Few roles have as much range as this one, and Signora Magnani handles every nuance beautifully.
Obviously I have other problems with the film, which is directed in an often quite pedestrian manner, with characters wrongly out of focus and shots framed with a stationary camera so that the actors have to walk into the static shot. The story often shoots off in so many directions at the same time that one cannot follow the narrative, simply because the narrative is badly confused and in terrible need of being tightened up. "The Rose Tattoo" won another Oscar for Best B&W Cinematography, which mainly tells me that there must have been few B&W films released in 1955.
But worst of all is Burt Lancaster, horribly miscast as a Sicilian immigrant. He doesn't look the part, sound the part, or act the part. He is comic relief, played most broadly, and his attempts to steal the scenes are most unwelcome. Bouncing off the walls in his undershirt, laughing so loudly and with such physical overplay that one could mistake him for a schizophrenic, Lancaster's performance is ridiculous and distracting in the extreme. I love his work in films like "The Birdman of Alcatraz" and, much later, in "Local Hero," but this is just plain ugly. I think the intent was to lighten up the oppressive tone set by Serafina's extreme mourning, but the film would have been helped immensely by using someone with a lighter touch...and perhaps someone who vaguely resembles a Sicilian.
Ok, it's a LITTLE bit stagy
in parts, and Lancaster's performance is a little over the top here and there, but this is still an absolute classic. Anna Magnani is nothing short of magnificent, and while Lancaster does get a hair hammy in spots, his character is so buffoonish and likeable, he ends up being almost as endearing as Serafina.
The best way to enjoy it to the fullest? Stop reading about it, and just watch it. You won't be sorry.
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Director Stanley Kramer's socially conscious 1961 film tackles the subject of the war crime trials arising out of World War II in an earnest and straightforward fashion, exploring the consciousness of two nations as they struggle to come to terms with the aftermath of the Holocaust. Spencer Tracy plays the American judge selected to head the tribunal that will try the suspected war criminals. As he sets about his task, he must confront the raw emotion felt by the German people, and his own notions of good and evil, right and wrong. Regarded as a classic, this stark rendering of one of the most pivotal events in the 20th century features a stellar cast including Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Marlene Dietrich, a young William Shatner, and Maximillian Schell, who won an Oscar for his... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Spencer Tracy - Burt Lancaster - Richard Widmark Director(s): Stanley Kramer DVD Release Date: Released the 07 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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