The Rose Tattoo | |
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Original film poster
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Directed by | Daniel Mann |
Produced by | Hal B. Wallis |
Written by |
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Starring | |
Music by | Alex North |
Cinematography | James Wong Howe |
Edited by | Warren Low |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date
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December 12, 1955 |
Running time
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117 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English, Italian |
Box office | $4.2 million (US) |
The Rose Tattoo is a 1955 film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play of the same name. It was adapted by Williams and Hal Kanter and directed by Daniel Mann, with stars Anna Magnani, Burt Lancaster, Marisa Pavan and Jo Van Fleet. Williams originally wrote the play for Italian Anna Magnani to play on Broadway in 1951, but she rejected the offer because of her difficulty with the English language at the time. By the time of this film adaptation, she was ready.
Anna Magnani won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and it also won Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography and received five other nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting actress for Pavan.
Serafina Delle Rose (Anna Magnani) proudly praises her husband Rosario to her female neighbors in a shopping market, before revealing that she is pregnant with their second child. Returning home she finds Rosario asleep in bed and whispers to him that she is with child. Emerging from his room she finds a young woman named Estelle (Virginia Grey) at the door who wants her to make a shirt for her lover from some expensive silk material. It transpires that Rosario is her lover as, when Serafina is out of the room, she steals a photograph of him from Serafina's sideboard before departing.
Later that night Rosario is out working (he is a van driver who hauls bananas) and Serafina is busy working on the shirt for her customer. The women of the neighborhood discover that Rosario has been killed in a fiery road accident whilst trying to speed away from the police; he was smuggling something illegal under the bananas. When Serafina discovers her beloved husband's demise she collapses, and later the local doctor informs her daughter Rosa (Marisa Pavan) and the women of the neighborhood that Serafina has miscarried.