Anna

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.

Finally found a vhs copy of Anna(1951) via Movie Classics...Bad copy chopped..sniped together but the essence of this sultry exciting Italian neo classic film is still there...Over 50 yrs since I first saw this film in the Regent Theatre in Newark,NJ with my family..but those images remain...Anna the Nun.,Anna the nurse, Anna the night club samba singer dancer, Anna the whore who loves one man & sensually lusts after another!!!!The songs "Anna" sung by Mangano(#1 Hit record) & also "Non Dimenticar" are unforgettable.. beautiful Mangano, the face of Italy has made some US films notably, Ulysseus,5 Branded Women, & The Tempest, but will be remembered by aging audiences as the supreme siren of neo classic Italian films, Bitter Rice,ANNA, & Gold of Naples etc...dont miss..& lets hope we get a better copy!!!

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

Judging by the mostly ecstatic reviews it would appear that this film of Alberto Lattuarda has had quite an emotional impact and understandably so. It has been dismissed by critics as laughable melodrama. There are oodles of laughable melos out there but they are not all as well made and well played as this one. Having scored a hit three years earlier with 'Bitter Rice' it was obviously felt that there was more mileage to be had from the trio of Raf Vallone, Vittorio Gassman and Silvana Mangano. Vallone is again the honourable one, Gassman the rat and Silvana the meat in the sandwich. What can one say of La Mangano? An imperious, majestic and enigmatic artiste of great emotional power and depth. The highlight of the film for many will be Trovajoli's 'El Negro Zumbon' which she performs in a nightclub before becoming a nun(yes, it's that kind of film!) She is able to utilise her early training as a dancer but she lip-syncs to the voice of Flo Sandons whose singing career certainly benefited. As Sister Anna she is obliged to make a tough moral choice and her last line 'I have not lost' spoken to the strains of Nino Rota's lush score, should have you reaching for the Kleenex. At least I sincerely hope so!

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.