The Rose Tattoo

 

Picture: B     Sound: C+     Extras: D     Film: A-

 

 

Tennessee Williams’s play comes to life in glorious VistaVision starring Burt Lancaster and Anna Magnani.  Director Daniel Mann takes the reigns in this superb little film that shows the really terrific type of dramatic films that were coming forth during the 1950’s even among a lot of the fluff and gimmick filmmaking that was going on.  Released by Paramount this is one DVD worthy of ownership for a few reasons outside of just a good film. 

 

The story is relatively simple on the outside as we are introduced to a small town in Louisiana where a husband is killed leaving his wife behind to miscarry and raise another daughter in the meantime.  She flees into seclusion, but then finds out about an affair that her husband had while he was alive, which puts her into a new lifestyle of freedom now that she has met a handsome new truck driver played by Lancaster. 

 

The 1.85 X 1 anamorphically enhanced black and white picture is breathtaking in many ways.  First there is the impeccable camerawork by James Wong Howe, easily one of the best black and white cinematographers to ever work in the business.  He was also very competent with VistaVision at this early point and you can see just how clean a VistaVision print can be even after all these years.  Too bad this format is only used nowadays for special effect sequences.  This ranks among some of his best, although Hud (1963) and Seconds (1966) were still on the way and are among some of my favorites.  Like those two films this one is shot with a very intimate and literate camera style, which allows this drama to unfold before its lens.

 

Black levels seem very dark and deep where need be and whites remain true and solid, without spilling over or become too ‘yellowish’.  The grayscale overall is just amazing and ranks as one of Paramount’s better releases of this age.  Even the Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono works pretty well with minimal hiss or excessive harshness.  While there are no extras at all, this is a real treat just for its technical achievements and it’s a solid piece of filmmaking.  This is also a reteaming of director Daniel Mann, actor Burt Lancaster, and cinematographer James Wong Howe, who a few years prior did another fantastic film called Come Back, Little Sheba.

 

 

-   Nate Goss