The Rose Tattoo

We can always count on Tennessee Williams to give us an engrossing tale of love, lust, loss, betrayal, sexual frustration, and jealousy. Anna Magnani's corrosive performance absolutely dominates this film, which works well in black & white (the overheated emotions seem to leap out of the b&w more starkly than they would out of color); you can't take your eyes off her - it's like watching a train wreck. She makes this insecure, emotionally frightened, self-deluded, yet domineering woman a sympathetic figure in the end. Burt Lancaster is a bit over the top, but the role calls for it. A fascinating aspect is the parallel development of the daughter's budding sexuality with the release of her mother's long-suppressed yearnings. Those fascinated by Magnani here should catch her working with Anthony Quinn in "The Secret of Santa Vittoria", made just four years before her death. Once again, thank you American Movie Classics for bringing us this fine film.

Time has not been kind to The Rose Tattoo, a 1955 release that garnered three Oscars, plus additional nominations. Originally written by Tennessee Williams as a play, the film's shortcomings now cancel out much that audiences might have found entertaining about it 47 years ago. The deficits include bad acting all around (with the exception of the star, Anna Magnani) and an uneven script by Williams (who among other things was apparently clueless about how an adolescent boy and girl, attracted to each other, might talk or behave).

Playing the role of the dim-witted but sexy truck driver who courts a grieving widow (Magnani), Burt Lancaster gives a highly exaggerated "comedy performance" that is occasionally embarrassing to watch. A great natural actor in his other films and noted for his controlled physicallity, Lancaster here gawks, bends, waves his arms, makes faces, cries (clownishly), and is generally ape-like, all the while failing to get inside the character he's portraying. (Leading American actors have always had a problem convincingly playing people less intelligent than themselves; see Lon Chaney, Jr. in Of Mice and Men or, more recently, Jack Nicholson in Prizzi's Honor for more examples of this.)

Under the direction of Daniel Mann (who also directed the play), and intended as a comedy-drama, almost everything in Rose Tattoo is either loud or overblown (though it may have been Williams' wish that it be played this way in a misguided attempt to heighten the humorous dimension of the story). The host of supporting characters are all portrayed as one-dimensional grotesques or harpies who telegraph their every thought or emotion by arm-waving, facial contortions, or semiphoring the kind of villainousness that went out in the early '30s. Nor does Mann seem to have fine control over the physical goings-on by cast members. In some scenes small groups of people rush back and forth like obedient cattle, too obviously responding to off-camera direction; and at the high school prom a male extra noticeably freezes for a second or two as he waits for Marisa Pavan and her sailor dance partner to leave the floor ahead of him.

Magnani, for whom the play was written (though she just appeared in the film, after she had mastered the rudiments of the English language), comes across as the only real human being among a slew of posturing marionettes. Her portrayal of a terribly put-upon Sicilian widow fighting off the knowledge of her dead husband's infidelity and desperately trying to maintain her dignity in the face of snide remarks and out-and-out insults is awe-inspiring. I doubt that her performance has ever been matched by any American actress before or after. (Only Vivien Leigh, a Brit, comes to mind as a mentally disintegrating Blanche du Bois in the film version of Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire.) Williams, who was famously homosexual, understood and probably identified with vulnerable women. (Years before, his own sister, when a young woman, had been seriously mentally ill, "put away," and had undergone a lobotomy. It was no coincidence that her name was Rose.)

It ain't easy to steal the spotlight from Burt Lancaster, but Anna Magnani in her Oscar winning performance managed to do just that. Of course it helps to have the female role be the protagonist here.

In the 1951 season on Broadway, Tennessee Williams's The Rose Tattoo came to Broadway and ran for 306 performances and starred Maureen Stapleton and Eli Wallach in the Magnani and Lancaster parts. Like all of Tennessee Williams's work it is set in the south, but a different kind of south than we usually see. Surely Serafina Derosse is a lot different than decadent southerners like Blanche Dubois, or Alexandra Del Lago, or Violet Venable. She's from a different world than they, being an immigrant. She brings her culture and its values to the gulf area.

Serafina's husband is killed in a brief prologue in a car crash, he's a truck driver who does a little smuggling on the side. He also does a bit of womanizing on the side as well which comes out at his death. As a result Magnani just withdraws from the world and even tries to turn her daughter, Marisa Pavan, into as a bitter a creature as she is.

Enter Burt Lancaster into her life, who's also a truck driver. His is a pretty expansive role also, but he's just not in the same league as Magnani, few are. Burt was cast in the role because Paramount wanted some box office name as Magnani was not known in this country, though she was Italy's biggest female star.

In a recent biography of Burt Lancaster it said that Lancaster was lucky in this part because he grew up in East Harlem, one of the few WASP types there and had many Italian immigrant friends and their families to draw upon for his character. It's a good performance, Lancaster stops well short of making it a cartoon creation and getting the Italian American Civil Rights group down on him.

Still it's Magnani's picture and she dominates it thoroughly. She did only a few English language films after this, Wild is the Wind and The Secret of Santa Vittoria with Anthony Quinn and The Fugitive Kind with Marlon Brando among them. Brando in fact turned down this film because he was afraid she'd upstage him. Guess he got his courage later on.

The Rose Tattoo is probably the closest Tennessee Williams came to doing a comedy. It's well short of a comedy, there's too many serious parts to this film to consider it that. Still I think it's something different from Tennessee Williams, something unique, and something wonderful.

The Rose Tattoo is a solid film with terrific performances by 3 Oscar winners: Anna Magnani, Burt Lancaster, and Jo Van Fleet. Magnani landed the film version after Maureen Stapleton had originated the part on Broadway, and she is terrific as the smouldering Italian woman whose husband is killed when he is caught smuggling. The Tennessee Williams play touches on the usual ingredients of sexual repression and denial and hypocrisy. After years of mourning the dead husband (the Baron), Magnani finally gives in to sexual urges (with Lancaster) only after the swarm of village women (a pack of Italian harpy hags that acts as a Greek Chorus) convince her that the husband had been unfaithful. The subplot involves the purity of the daughter who is dating an equally pure sailor (Marisa Pavan and Ben Cooper). The subplot is boring. Lancaster is good as the simpleton truck driver who serves as the double for the dead husband, right down to the rose tattoo on his chest. Another rose tattoo shows up on the chest of the husband's floozie girl friend (nicely played by Virginia Grey), which serves as the "proof" Magnani needs to finally believe her husband's cheating. Lots of symbolism and circular plots, but the bottom line is the excellence of the acting. Magnani won a well-deserved Oscar for this film. Her scenes with Lancaster are electric. And Van Fleet is super as the shrieking customer (Magnani is a seamstress); it's no coincidence that Van Fleet won the supporting actress Oscar that year for East of Eden, since her performance in The Rose Tattoo is a world apart from that film. And yes Tennessee Williams can be glimpsed as a barfly at the Mardi Gras Club.

I recommend this film solely to witness Magnani's performance, which was an utterly beautiful piece of acting, indeed. Although I did not feel pulled into the plot very much, I did sympathize with Magnani's character because she played her part with such heart. I must admit that I was disappointed by Lancaster's overacting, and the minor actors also were not at all impressive. Also, I do not feel inspired to read the play itself because I don't think that reading it could compare to watching Magnani's riveting performance through which Magnani's soul itself seems to bleed.

Although I cannot think of another film with such an engaging actress, the beginning tone and ambiance of this film reminded me of other Tennessee Williams works. The atmosphere is open, naked, and almost frightening; Williams's plays always introduce characters that are very human--weak, lonely, unsettled--and deeply passionate. He doesn't take care to hide the frightening and desperate side of people even though we may not want to see that. He makes no exception in this piece, and this sense of humanity is most effectively portrayed through Magnani.