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.
