The Rose Tattoo

The Rose Tattoo is a 1955 American 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 declined 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 the film won Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography receiving five other nominations including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress for Pavan. Plot Serafina Delle Rose (Anna Magnani), a Sicilian seamstress, living in a community in proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, fiercely proud of and loyal to her truck-driving husband Rosario, is pregnant with her second child. While he is sleeping, Estelle (Virginia Grey) asks Serafina to make a shirt for her lover from some expensive silk material; Serafina does not know that the lover is Rosario, and that earlier that afternoon, Estelle got a tattoo of a rose on her chest to match Rosario's. That night, Rosario is killed in an accident while trying to evade police during a smuggling run. 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.