The Rose Tattoo Fades Badly

 

The Rose Tattoo (1955)

Directed by Daniel Mann

Paramount, 117 minutes, Not-rated

★★

 

 

Once upon a time, a handsome man who played the field was called Lothario, Don Juan, or Casanova. That morphed into lady-killer, then skirt-chaser. These days such behavior invites even less savory labels like lecher or predator. Why the vocabulary lesson? Call it a reminder that how we describe the world changes over time. Shifting values are also why a once-heralded movie such as The Rose Tattoo (1955) seems problematic when viewed today. It was nominated for three Academy Awards and won three, including a Best Actress trophy for Italian icon Anna Magnani.

 

The movie is based upon a play written by Tennessee Williams, who wrote the film’s screenplay. He too has undergone reconsideration. His works often featured family trauma that skirted or crossed the borders of domestic violence. Women tended to be frightened rabbits or sultry temptresses, but even damaged male characters oozed animalistic masculinity. Williams died in 1983, but you could probably draw conclusions from the fact that only one of his plays has been made into a film since then. It bombed and drew slams such as stodgy and old-fashioned. I’d use both to describe The Rose Tattoo.

 

The setting is an Italian immigrant community largely populated by Sicilians and Neapolitans. Williams didn’t imagine that; only New York City had a larger Italian population than New Orleans. Much of The Rose Tattoo hinges on hyper-masculine machismo. Magnani’s performance remains Oscar-worthy, though it sometimes looks as if she’s acting in a Fellini film rather than one based in the steamy shack-strewn U.S. South. She is Serafina Delle Rose, with the play/movie title performing double duty. An actual rose-colored tattoo—okay a black and white one per the film stock used–is a major prop, as is a silk shirt.

 

Serafina, a seamstress, is married to Rosario, a truck driver and contraband runner, though his major occupation is that of a skirt-chaser. Serafina is pregnant with their second child and refuses to believe that Rosario (rhymes with Lothario!) is unfaithful. Not even when Estelle (Virginia Grey), a current conquest, describes his tattoo and shows off her matching ink. Gossipy neighbors, though, taunt Serafina for being such a tart that she can’t hold onto her man. Alas, Serafina! She’s poor as a church mouse, prone to hysterics, and wedded to old ways in a new land. What she seems to do best is embarrass her daughter Rosa (Marisa Pavan) and undermine a burgeoning romance with a decidedly non-Sicilian sailor.

 

When Rosario falls out of the picture, Serafina sulks, throws temper tantrums, and screams like a banshee. She’s a strong-willed (or is it pigheaded?) woman who scares away men, until Alvaro Mangiacavallo (Burt Lancaster) comes along. He’s also a truck driver, and an unwashed one with the brains of a woodchuck to boot. Neither Serafina nor viewers are entirely sure if he’s a gigolo, a conman, or just a big-hearted doofus. 

 

Leaving aside the fact that an Irish-American such as Lancaster probably wouldn’t get to play an Italian these days, The Rose Tattoo is a broad drama leavened with comedic touches that pull laughter from a hamper full of stereotypes. Lancaster and others are clearly giving method acting their best shot. They do okay, but for me, way too much dissolves into histrionics.

 

At is best, The Rose Tattoo touches upon issues of social class, traditionalism versus emergent norms, and Protestant/Catholic tensions. It also makes us ponder what it would be like to be a Sicilian in the 1950s Deep South. It’s not enough. The Rose Tattoo feels like a hipster’s weathered ink: drained of color, murky, and so, so yesterday.

 

Rob Weir