Anna

I think this is one of the most beautiful Italian films ever made and I know my views are shared by many! The wildly, beautiful Silvano and the late Vittorio Gassman are excellent in their roles. The songs and dances by Silvana can only be compared to the 'heat' generated by Rita Hayworth in "Gilda"--and you will find yourself loving those love songs for the rest of your life. When she becomes "Sister" Anna: you'll want to have a box of tissues handy.

Lovely Sophia Loren makes one of her first appearances in this beautiful film directed by Carlo Ponti.

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?

What a movie , this is the best Italian movie from he early 50s Silvana Mangano at the top of her game very beautiful , sensual and fantastic the musical number are great and the song El negro sumbon is extraordinary , La Mangano never was better here she is better than in Bitter Rice , Silvana Mangnao love to be a mother more than a movie star and for sometime she retired to have children with her husband producer Dino di Laurenti eventually Silvana comeback to the movie and she was as good as always she did few movies for Luchino Visconti and Pier Paolo Pasoline all of then were great, La Mangano die in 1989 of cancer she die in Madrid Spain her life at the end was sad her son die in a plane crash in 1981 she never recovery from his death

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.

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.