Anna

Anna (Silvana Mangano) is a nun who works at a hospital taking care of patients, but the arrival of Andrea (Raf Vallone) will bring forward memories from her past.

This is the movie where the song "El negro zumbon" comes from. A song performed by Flo Sandon that became a hit single and was also featured in "Caro diario" from 1993, where we can see Nanni Moretti dancing in front of a TV in a shop.

Director Alberto Lattuada introduces us to Anna in her present situation as a nun working among doctors, but the coming of a new patient takes us to the past where we can see its protagonist's life before she became a nun.

Anna was a nightclub singer who captivated many clients every night performing songs. It is here Vittorio (Vittorio Gassman) was part of her life as the bartender in said club.

Thematically, the film explores how past and present collide, creating dilemmas with love at its core. Anna, as a sister working in the hospital, is something very much appreciated, but will this be enough to silence the voices now awakened that beckon her to follow her heart?

Finally found a vhs copy of Anna(1951) via Movie Classics...Bad copy chopped..sniped together but the essence of this sultry exciting Italian neo classic film is still there...Over 50 yrs since I first saw this film in the Regent Theatre in Newark,NJ with my family..but those images remain...Anna the Nun.,Anna the nurse, Anna the night club samba singer dancer, Anna the whore who loves one man & sensually lusts after another!!!!The songs "Anna" sung by Mangano(#1 Hit record) & also "Non Dimenticar" are unforgettable.. beautiful Mangano, the face of Italy has made some US films notably, Ulysseus,5 Branded Women, & The Tempest, but will be remembered by aging audiences as the supreme siren of neo classic Italian films, Bitter Rice,ANNA, & Gold of Naples etc...dont miss..& lets hope we get a better copy!!!

Long before Sophia, Gina or Monica there was Silvana, both beautiful! and could act as well. As a child my ItalianAmerican parents took me to see her films that made it across the Atlantic, namely the classic Bitter Rice, and Anna ... Both were great films, but Anna was unforgettable, the mood the score and the performances were just great. I realize it must be 50 yrs. since Ive seen this film/ maybe once on TV! Never appears in revival houses... It should be seen.. It is not on USA tape,(Bitter Rice is sometimes shown on Bravo), Im going to contact TCM and Bravo to please revive this movie. It had 2 hit songs "Anna" # 1 hit, sung by Mangano herself, and "Non Dimenticar" done by everyone including Nat King Cole, Jerry Vale and others. If someone is aware of a video release please let me know... long live Anna and its sultry sexy star, who people are forgetting, Silvana Mangano!

I couldn't believe that some of these film's reviews are as new as 2010!! I saw this movie as a child (so long ago!) and never forgot it.

"La Mangano" (The stress goes on the first A: Mángano), at that time made a big hit here in Argentina, as did some other Italian beauties, like Silvana Pampanini and Gina Lollobrigida.

They were living LEGENDS.

"Bitter Rice" ("Riso amaro") shows Silvana Mangano as an incredibly sexy woman (same in this film, "Anna") and the baion she dances in one scene made history.

The love scenes between her and Vittorio Gasman are breathtaking, because both actors where terribly sexy.

At that time these movies were VERY osé, almost pornographic (they are so mild by comparison with what we see today...).

It's true what another reviewer says: "Only Rita Hayworth made such an impression when doing "Amado mio" and "Put the Blame on Mame" in "Gilda".

Nobody could get that feeling on film nowadays. As Gloria Swanson character puts it in "Sunset Boulevard": "We had faces then" (She meant in the silent era), but these Italian stars had faces AND BODIES to match!!

About Silvana Mangano, it's incredible the way this actress refined her looks after a while. Seeing her in "Morte a Venezia" ("Death in Venice"), by Visconti --1971--, where she plays Tadzio's mother, an extremely refined polish countess, it's almost impossible to associate her with the voluptuos woman in "Anna" and "Bitter Rice".

Her polished looks are even more glorious than when she was a sex bomb.

Same thing in "Gruppo di famiglia in un interno" --1974-- again by Visconti, with Burt Lancaster.

A true star that unfortunately had such a sad ending, but then, as Dorothy Parker put it when defending before Louis B. Mayer her bitter ending scripts: "Mr. Mayer, in real life there are no happy endings".

Silvana Mangano's was no exception.

This is melodrama with a capital M ,a genre which was thriving in the Italian cinema of the fifties. Amedeo Nazzari and Yvonne Sanson were par excellence the king and the queen of the soap opera ;if you like melo, you'll like it .Silvana Mangano , on the threshold of a brilliant career ,plays a nun -a recurrent feature in this kind of movie and in photo love stories - devoted to her patients in the hospital where she works as a indefatigable nurse; the first thirty minutes are given over to her relationship with her patients ;but mother superior (played by French Gaby Morlay ,herself often cast in melodramas ,"le voile bleu" (1942)being the best example ,both this film and "Anna " have much in common) thinks that maybe she's not ready to take her definitive vows .

Hence the long flashbacks which reveal Anna 's tormented past , where two men, the loyal Raf Vallone and the baddie Vittorio Gassmann play a prominent part ;but it takes about thirty minutes before them, which is a good thing ,considering the denouement which , eventually ,makes sense.