I’ve now seen 80 films that were released in 1955. A few were reviewed only here. It was quite a deep year with 59 available films rated 7/10 or higher by IMDb users. Lately, I have thought that it would never end! That’s not to say that I didn’t watch many fantastic films – too many to fit all the films I rated 9/10 or over in this favorites list. Also rans were: Richard III; The Desperate Hours; Night and Fog; All That Heaven Allows; Oklahoma!; Marty; and Rebel Without a Cause.
Le Amiche Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Alba de Cespedes from a novel by Cesare Pavese 1955/Italy Trionfalcine
First viewing/Netflix rental
[box] One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood. — Lucius Annaeus Seneca [/box]
How refreshing to find a 1950’s movie in which the career woman is the most balanced and admirable character! I liked this early Antonioni offering a lot.
Cleilia (Eleonora Rossi Drago) comes to Turin to prepare for the opening of a new studio of the Rome fashion house she works for. She finds the project almost hopelessly behind schedule and must take charge of the lackadaisical workmen. One morning, a maid runs into her room at the hotel announcing that the woman in the next room is dead. It turns out that the woman, Rosetta, is not dead but nearly so due to a suicide attempt. She recovers. Gradually, Cleilia becomes part of Rosetta’s circle of friends. She takes pity on the young socialite and gets her a job at the studio to distract her from her worries.
All of Rosetta’s friends have one type of man trouble or another. The principal story involves Lorenzo, a painter, and his wife Nene (Valentina Cortese), a potter. Lorenzo shows a portrait he painted of Rosetta at a show. The show is not a success. In the meantime, Nene is invited to show her ceramics at a celebrated gallery in New York. Part of Rosetta’s problem is that she fell in love with Lorenzo while he was painting her. After her recovery, she instigates an affair. We continue to follow the friendship and romantic lives of our protagonists.
This has some of the familiar Antonioni themes of alienation and upper class ennui but there is also a sense of agency in these women that is very good to see for the period. The men are really secondary. For me the outstanding performance was that of Valentina Cortese who is being torn up by the conflict between her art and her love for her cheating husband. I loved the ending as well. Recommended.
The Rose Tattoo Directed by Daniel Mann Written by Tennessee Williams and Hal Kanter from Williams’s play 1955/USA Paramount Pictures
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] “Everybody is nothing until you love them.” ― Tennessee Williams, The Rose Tattoo[/box]
The rest of the film is not as strong as Anna Magnani’s tour-de-force Academy Award winning performance.
Serefina delle Rose (Magnani) immigrated to the U.S. from Sicily and now lives somewhere in the South with her husband Rosario and fifteen-year-old daughter Rosa. She is completely devoted and enthralled by Rosario, who wears a rose tattoo on his chest. (Obviously, the rose symbolism is going to be taken to the limit in this movie.) He is a truck driver and when caught hauling “something else” under his bananas gets into an accident and is killed. Serefina is overcome with grief and spends her days in her nightgown and robe, embarrassing the hell out of Rosa.
Serefina continues with her business as a seamstress. She becomes obsessed with preserving Rosa’s innocence. She does not take it kindly when Rosa falls in love with a young sailor at a high school dance.
One day, a woman comes into pick up a blouse she wants to wear to a convention in New Orleans. The blouse is not ready, one thing leads to another, and a terrific argument ensues. The woman blurts out that Rosario was having an affair. This is shattering news to Serafina and she intially refuses to believe it. She ends up trying to pry the information from Rosario’s confessor at church. She is unsuccessful but so distraught that she needs a ride home.
Alvaro Mangiacavallo, whose sister had been trying to make a match for him with Serafina any way, comes to the rescue. The rest of the movie follows the uneasy courtship between Alvaro, “who has the body of Rosario, the face of a clown and smells like a goat”, and Serafina.
Burt Lancaster’s character is the big question mark in this film. I’m uncertain as to whether the usually reliable actor was taking it way over the top or whether he is playing the character as written. At any rate, his shenanigans add a comic tone to an otherwise dark story and seem incongruous. Otherwise, there is nothing exactly wrong with the movie but it didn’t send me.
The Rose Tattoo won Academy Awards in the categories of Best Actress; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White. It was nominated in the categories of Best Picture; Best Supporting Actress (Pavan); Best Costume Design, Black-and-White; Best Film Editing; and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture.
The End of the Affair Directed by Edward Dmytryck Written by Lenore J. Coffee from a novel by Graham Greene 1955/UK Coronado Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Sarah Miles: If there is a god, then he put the thought of that prayer in my mind, and I hate him for it.[/box]
This movie made me want to read the source novel and see the 1999 remake with Ralph Fiennes. That’s another way of saying that I thought Van Johnson weakened this version of the story.
The setting is London during the tail end of WWII while V2 rockets are still flying. Maurice Bendrix (Johnson) is an American war correspondent. He is writing a novel about the British civiil service and gets friendly with Henry Miles (Peter Cushing) while looking for background. At a party hosted by the Mileses, he looks in a mirror sees Henry’s wife Sarah (Deborah Kerr) kissing a man. This leads him to invite her to lunch for more “background” and they begin a love affair.
The affair is passionate on both sides but Maurice is filled with doubts and jealousy. Finally, they are able to spend five days alone together while Henry is traveling. The house is hit by a V2 while Maurice goes off by himself to investigate something. When he returns after the explosion Sarah flees and thereafter refuses to answer his calls or see him.
It turns out that Sarah thought Maurice had been killed and in her prayer promised God that she would end the affair if he lived. Sarah is not a churchgoer and the rest of the movie deals with her crisis of faith and Maurice’s bitterness and attempts at reconciliation.
I was looking forward to this one for the subject matter. I think Johnson was all wrong for his part. I never got his attraction for Sarah or his anguish properly. The movie was a bit more of a melodrama than I was ready for. It needed some more bite or something. I’m not sorry I saw it, however.
I’ve been a classic movie fan for many years. My original mission was to see as many movies as I could get my hands on for every year from 1929 to 1970. I have completed that mission.
I then carried on with my chronological journey and and stopped midway through 1978. You can find my reviews of 1934-1978 films and “Top 10” lists for the 1929-1936 and 1944-77 films I saw here. For the past several months I have circled back to view the pre-Code films that were never reviewed here.
I’m a retired Foreign Service Officer living in Indio, California. When I’m not watching movies, I’m probably traveling, watching birds, knitting, or reading.
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2. Ordet – directed by Carl Th. Dreyer
