It's getting hotter in the Keys, finally, the winds are dying down a little this week and the sun seems brighter and the sky bluer and the clouds whiter. It takes a little more effort to sit out and hold a book on one's afternoons off. Summertime is a good time to be hidden indoors for a while after getting overheated outdoors. Sandratee put me in mind of the local movies section of the Big Pine video store.
It's based on a play by Tennessee Williams, a writer who did actually spend a fair bit of time in Key West and the movie though not set in Key West was shot partially in the city. This is described as Front Street (actually Duncan Street in Key West, apparently) by the taxi driver of the unnamed Gulf Coast city (in Mississippi) where the action takes place:
There's a lot of indoor action though I should point out there is a car chase and a shoot out so there's something for everyone. Anna Magnani got best actress Oscar for her role in the 1955 film, playing a wild Sicilian emigrant who gets widowed and has to get her life back on track. Aside from the fact she bears a striking resemblance to my mother who's been dead these 35 years she plays a "pleasantly plump" (not my description) housewife who goes to pieces in a rather public and humiliating way. And she learned to speak English for the role.
Along comes a man, "the body of my husband with the head of a clown" played by Burt Lancaster who literally jumps for joy at their first date, which scene alone is worth the price of admission:
Its a movie filled with drama and shouting and misunderstandings, young love, old love and lots of banana trees and a couple of street scenes from Key West in the good old days. I was surprised by how little St Paul's Cathedral has changed since 1955 (in the film it became a Catholic church!) and I quite enjoyed the exotic dancers in a downtown bar wobbling gently and seen only from the waist down, their antics rapidly overshadowed by the mother of all cat fights. there was a lot about this movie I had forgotten. Not least the clown up a mast:
The young truck driver has to overcome not a few obstacles to hunt down his Sicilian flame the Baronessa Serafina delle Rose but her daughter played by the 30 year old (!) Marisa Pavan has a tough row to hoe too. Lots of tears.
It was a great romp and being as how Tennessee Williams wrote it there's no certainty how it will all end up, tears before bedtime or not. The chorus of Italian crones was the best touch of color of all, not least because they were real Italian speakers and let rip in their native tongue from time to time:
Rose Tattoo has been released in a new digital version which has to be good news as I understand video cassette players are getting as old and out of date as I am. I just wish there was a real crowd like this to enliven a hot summer afternoon in Old Town. I guess the cinematic version will just have to do.
It's based on a play by Tennessee Williams, a writer who did actually spend a fair bit of time in Key West and the movie though not set in Key West was shot partially in the city. This is described as Front Street (actually Duncan Street in Key West, apparently) by the taxi driver of the unnamed Gulf Coast city (in Mississippi) where the action takes place:There's a lot of indoor action though I should point out there is a car chase and a shoot out so there's something for everyone. Anna Magnani got best actress Oscar for her role in the 1955 film, playing a wild Sicilian emigrant who gets widowed and has to get her life back on track. Aside from the fact she bears a striking resemblance to my mother who's been dead these 35 years she plays a "pleasantly plump" (not my description) housewife who goes to pieces in a rather public and humiliating way. And she learned to speak English for the role.Along comes a man, "the body of my husband with the head of a clown" played by Burt Lancaster who literally jumps for joy at their first date, which scene alone is worth the price of admission:Its a movie filled with drama and shouting and misunderstandings, young love, old love and lots of banana trees and a couple of street scenes from Key West in the good old days. I was surprised by how little St Paul's Cathedral has changed since 1955 (in the film it became a Catholic church!) and I quite enjoyed the exotic dancers in a downtown bar wobbling gently and seen only from the waist down, their antics rapidly overshadowed by the mother of all cat fights. there was a lot about this movie I had forgotten. Not least the clown up a mast:The young truck driver has to overcome not a few obstacles to hunt down his Sicilian flame the Baronessa Serafina delle Rose but her daughter played by the 30 year old (!) Marisa Pavan has a tough row to hoe too. Lots of tears.It was a great romp and being as how Tennessee Williams wrote it there's no certainty how it will all end up, tears before bedtime or not. The chorus of Italian crones was the best touch of color of all, not least because they were real Italian speakers and let rip in their native tongue from time to time:Rose Tattoo has been released in a new digital version which has to be good news as I understand video cassette players are getting as old and out of date as I am. I just wish there was a real crowd like this to enliven a hot summer afternoon in Old Town. I guess the cinematic version will just have to do.