User Reviews

By 1949, Italian Neo-Realism was just 6 or 7 years old, but it had already taken the world by storm, stunning audiences and winning awards all over. When "Bitter Rice" was made, Neo- Realist principles (i.e. no stars, mix of professional and non-professional actors, location-only shooting, rejection of "beauty"/classicism/romanticism, stressing on "ordinary" people and "real-life" themes) were being stretched: stars were joining in (including international ones, like Ingrid Bergman, or starlets like American Doris Dowling here), productions got bigger and more expensive, crews more professional, equipment more sophisticated, "ordinary" people were being replaced by Olympic beauties (or do ordinary people EVER look like Silvana Mangano or Vittorio Gassman?), "ordinary" characters were getting very complex, and real life was being traded by elaborate, far from realistic drama.

"Bitter Rice" was one of the biggest world-wide box-office hits of Neo-Realism. The reason for its success wasn't exactly in the depiction of the lives of poor peasant women who worked under harsh conditions in rice plantations in rural Italy -- this isn't the theme of "Bitter Rice", it's just its background. The main reason for its success probably lied in the fact that the audience could enjoy a Noir story of doomed love, betrayal and crime while being politically instructed, watching the miserly, semi-literate female workers develop Marxist consciousness while parading their butts and naked thighs in industrial quantities.

Thus, "Bitter Rice" is a sort of titillating Noir with Neo-Realist scenery and Marxist subtext. The big scenes in the rice paddies, the post-war devastation. the poverty and the supporting characters are Neo-Realist all right. But the Noir elements (also prominent in Visconti's 1943 masterpiece "Ossessione", based, after all, on Cain's "The Postman Always Rings Twice") are strong: the indoor lighting (check out those stylized shadows in the warehouse), the complex camera-work (that amazing opening dolly shot!!), the doomed characters (Silvana is a peasant femme fatale, Gassman is a rotten crook, Raf Vallone is a jaded war veteran, Dowling is the woman born to be mistreated and abused), the perverted violence (Gassman is a sadist, Dowling is a masochist, Silvana is a sado-masochist; the deaths are stylized to the hilt), the uncontrollable sexuality and the inexorability of fate.

But "Bitter Rice" had 7 (!!) writers working on it, and the film suffers from an excess of back stories and conflicting focuses: jewel robbery, rice looting, union rights, clandestine labor, post-war trauma, political manifesto, rape, murder, betrayal, revenge, etc. And it had Dino de Laurentiis producing, who, at 30, already showed his penchant for grandeur: check out those crowd scenes of epic proportions, with hundreds of women in the paddies, on trains, on trucks. Sometimes the screen is so over- crowded you'll be gasping for air.

"Bitter Rice" is a convoluted film, but no one can say it lacks great scenes: the women's chant in the paddies builds up to such tension between the legal and illegal workers it leads to their physical confrontation (it's probably the biggest -- in numbers -- female brawl in film history); or the women going to work even under heavy rain; or the final confrontation in the slaughterhouse; or the electrifying whipping/rape scene between Gassman and Silvana; or Silvana dancing, Silvana reading in bed, Silvana smiling, Silvana crying, Silvana bathing, Silvana walking...

Silvana Mangano gives what's probably one of the 10 most stunning star-making female performances in cinema. With absolutely no training, this former beauty queen and film extra had the luck to resemble Ingrid Bergman when Bergman was Hollywood's #1 star. But that's just the start: she also had the kind of body that makes men drool and babble, a fabulous acting instinct and a stormy temper. The emotional range of her character (also named Silvana) is huge: strong and frail, simple and ambitious, healthy and neurotic, determined and insecure, jealous and indifferent, jaded and naive, compulsive and calculating. All of this while exuding sex through every pore. It's an amazing performance, especially when you consider she was 18 at the time!! Her character reunites Rita Hayworth's sex-driven and tormented Gilda (including the howling- inducing dance numbers), Lana Turner's tragic Cora (from "The Postman...") and Jennifer Jones' stubborn sado-masochist Pearl (from "Duel in the Sun") all in one. She's a mess, but we root for her anyway. In the heart-stopping finale, lucidity, insanity and shame cloud her face as she climbs to her destiny. With "Bitter Rice" (and later with "Anna"), Mangano paved the way to the new, uninhibited, earthy, irrepressible sex divas of the 50s like Sophia, Gina, Ava and Brigitte. She was the anti-Marilyn, the opposite of the fragile, sex-toy doll. Later she changed radically into a refined, slender diva and became the favorite star of Pasolini and Visconti. But here you have the chance to see the early Silvana, in all her teenage glory, talent and temper.

Next to her, the other main stars fade aside: Gassman, then the brightest young star of Italian theater, is devilishly handsome and virile, but tends to overact (but we get a glimpse of what his Stanley Kowalski must have been on stage). Raf Vallone is properly Burt-Lancasterish, but there's little he can do with his weak, inconsistent character. Doris Dowling, who had a wonderful cameo in Billy Wilder's "The Lost Weekend", has a strong, intelligent face and does her best to overcome her miscasting as an Italian ragazza.

Seen today, "Bitter Rice" is still quite an experience. The script is over-packed, but the imagery is powerful. The main couple's tragic destiny isn't accidental: what happens to the two gum- chewing, boogie-woogie-dancing, America-struck star-crossed lovers in devastated post-war Italy isn't there just for dramatic reasons. It's a political statement from anti-Capitalist artists who, contradictorily, used idiomatic tools of the very system (Hollywood-U.S.A.) they were attacking, and came up with this esthetically schizophrenic but certainly fascinating hybridism of Neo-Realism and the Hollywood B-movie. My vote: 7 out of 10.

Riso Amaro is one of those atypical movies that is not only multi-layered and realistic, but also difficult to categorize. And it has Mangano. Silvana Mangano, age nineteen, is simply stunning in every way one can visualize. Can a man take his eyes away from her? And her two dances … what an electrifying screen presence! Prettier than Drago, Loren, and Cardinale, she was a natural actress in the right setting. She may not have had the drive of many of Italy's breathtaking actresses, but she certainly lit up a screen. And this movie was made in a situation that did not demand flamboyant make-up, fancy hairstyles, and fine clothing. Even her underarms were unshaven (not unusual in Europe for the time; see a few French or German movies). No, this is what Italian neo-realism is all about, unlike the French new wave, with professional actresses all puffed up with baroque makeup and without a hair being out of place, and always looking prim! So much differently, Mangano is "earthy" and sensual! And she was not the only lovely "peasant girl" in the motion picture!

Ah yes, the movie. The beginning presents a newscaster on location in northeastern Italy who reports that the world's major rice-producing regions are China, India, and northern Italy. He comments on the hundreds of women arriving in the area for the 40-day rice-harvesting season. Only women have the nimble hands and feet to do the backbreaking work in low-level water. They welcome the task, for it provides the recently war-torn citizens a chance to earn some precious money. Mixing among the group is a wanted thief, slippery stiletto-wielding Walter (Vittorio Gassmann) and an attractive female accomplice, Francesca (American Doris Dowling). Sergeant Marco (Raf Vallone), a ten-year veteran of the Italian army, is about to be discharged. We have the makings of a movie centering on the working classes, doomed love, abuse of women, robbery, illegal immigrants, and bravery. The focus is on the toil of the proletariat, the obvious tension between union and nonunion labor. But the parallel story is on a heist that will thwart all the wearisome work of the ladies. There will be a shootout, and our gorgeous Italian girl will climb a long ladder to her destiny.

Superb camera-work (long/wide vantage points), nice character-development, singing, and on-location shooting are big pluses of this fine, largely unknown, melodrama. Worth seeing.

In the 1940s -early 1950s Italian Cinema was at it peak. neo-realism was the stlye The Great Italian Directors came of age: De Sica/Fellini/DeSantis & others the italian movie actresses came in to being :Magnani/Lollabridgida/Loren /Martinelli and most especially here SYLVANA MANGANO.. sultry/earthy/sexy/beautiful/tempestuous etc.. she & her directors created images which one cannot forget!!The scene in Bitter Rice where she dances solo has to rate with anything Rita Hayorth or Marilyn Monroe did in Hollywood!!wow exciting, sensuous & memorable; as a film ,Bitter Rice ,is a fine example of Italian films of that era.. an exciting depiction of working class Italy & the problems that they endured@ 1940s....So well done with a fine cast Raf Vallone/Vittorio Gassman & American film actress Doris Dowling in a memorable role as Francesca.. the scenes in the rice field with the working women are most effective for me..The plot gets a bit melodramatic with multiple shootings etc at end, & Manganos great suicide scene.. However her finest moment is in the rice field , in the rain, when she is raped(seduced) by the leacherous Walter (Gassmann) her reaction to that moment is incredible!! Great to see again & again !!

Dear Russ Meyer,

I recently discovered that you are a big fan of Bitter Rice/Riso Amaro (1949). Though it was my admiration for Vittorio Gassman rather than your patronage that led me to this neorealist rural-noir. But I could not help but think about your films while watching this. Afterall, the film opens with a shot of female legs and thighs jumping into a water body.

How do I describe the film? A thrilling working class love quadrangle? A rice heist film? Titillating Communist manifesto filled with the thighs of bovine Italian women? The film does not really have a main plot. In fact, it is packed with sub-plots.

It is a film about these earthy and lustful working class people who live purely on instinct. They live cooped up together in a post-war Italy where humans are no better than cattle and have to fight for the right to work. Greed and passion drives them.

Silvana Mangano was sensational as the working class beauty. Her introduction scene where she is dancing is so real - I could smell the odor emanating out of her armpits. I am surprised you did not cast her in one of your films, Russ. She was a damn good actress too. She literally filled the screen with her plump thighs and when she is simply walking and laying around like a wild animal.

Vittorio Gassman looked menacing - the way he uses his tall and wiry body in the fight scenes and towards the end when he is shot dead is unbelievable. You could not ask for two better actors to play a working class couple.

The director sort of foregrounds the beauty and wildness of the working class throughout the film. We are treated to many scenes of scantily clad women working, fighting and bathing in the paddy fields. The film reminded me of John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath". Like in that book, the characters in this novel are also desperately searching for work. And there are so many of them. The film is filled with long shots of the working class woman that are supposed to emphasize their plenitude.

Like I said earlier, the numerous sub-plots and characters do affect the film's tempo. It could have used a really strict editor like you, Russ. It is not a masterpiece. But there is certainly a lot to appreciate.

Best regards, Pimpin.

(7/10)

This neorealist classic is really more of a crime melodrama with neorealist trappings (probably to please the critics), but damn if it isn't entertaining as Hell. It's probably best remembered for introducing the world to sexy Silvano Mangano and her erotic dancing. Doris Dowling actually plays the film's protagonist, a woman under the influence of her criminal boyfriend, Vittorio Gassman. Gassman influences her to steal expensive jewelry from the hotel where she works, and then tells her to go hide out with a group of women workers leaving on the local train. Mangano is one of those workers, a bit younger than Dowling, and, when she discovers the jewelry, she becomes enamored with her new friend's apparently exciting life. Dowling warns her that it's actually pretty crappy, but when Gassman shows up at the camp, Mangano is drawn to him. Raf Vallone rounds out the main cast as a soldier stationed near the rice fields who is in love with Mangano. The film really isn't too concerned with the plight of the poor rice workers, though it pays them enough lip service that it doesn't feel like it doesn't care. The script is uneven. There are a good handful of dumb bits, particularly the risible climactic sequence. It's fun throughout, though, and the two leading ladies are both very attractive.

Not copyright 1948 by Lux Films. New York opening in a sub-titled version at the World: 18 September 1950. U.S. release through Lux Films (sub-titled version) on 21 September 1950 and through Italian Films Export (dubbed version) in 1952. London opening of the sub- titled version at the Rialto, around March 1950. U.K. release of this version through Gelardi, Rashbrooke. Australian release in an English-dubbed version by RKO Radio Pictures: 7 March 1952. Sydney opening at the Esquire. Running times: 112 minutes (Australia), 103 minutes (London), 107 minutes (New York), 93 minutes (U.S. dubbed version).

Original Italian title: RISO AMARO.

NOTES: Giuseppe de Santis and Carlo Lizzani were nominated for the 1950 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture Story, losing to "Panic in the Streets."

COMMENT: Italian films of the forties and early fifties always pose a bit of an aural dilemma for me. I mean the dubbing. On the whole, I have a preference for the English-dubbed version because in most cases the British or American stars post-sync their own voices, whereas in the Rome version, none of the players — aside from the really big stars like Anna Magnani, Gino Cervi and Amedeo Nazzari — are allowed anywhere near a microphone.

It's strange to hear Vittorio Gassman's distinctively throaty voice replaced by a bland radio actor's; and equally disconcerting to find Silvana's peasant girl speaking beautifully cultured high class.

Of course, "Bitter Rice" was such a sensational success, it launched not only Mangano, but Gassman and Vallone as well, on to the international scene. Gassman was offered a Hollywood contract and before long was co-starring opposite the likes of Elizabeth Taylor.

Mangano continued her career after marrying this film's producer in 1949. Incidentally, "Bitter Rice" was not her first film. She'd previously made L'elisir d'amore for director Mario Costa in 1947. And she was eighteen, not seventeen, when she starred in Riso Amaro.

Alas, the film did nothing for the waning career of that ultra- classy siren of "The Blue Dahlia", Doris Dowling. Forced to play second fiddle to Mangano, she's not only dowdily dressed but robbed of her distinctive voice.

I thought the attempt to marry documentary neo-realism with a melodramatic plot worked rather well. The realistic backgrounds made the story seem far more credible, whilst at the same time the more sensational aspects of the story lend an added power and poignancy to the plight of the rice workers. The four leading characters are skillfully delineated. The writers give them enough quirks to make their behavior and reactions individualistic without descending into caricature.

Director De Santis and photographer Martelli's probing camera explore the teeming settings to the full, assisted by a no-holds- barred budget and an appropriately atmospheric music score.

Sounds like the perfect prospect for a dramatic musical to me, based one of the all time classic foreign films of all time, the perfect example of Italian neo-realism. On one hand, it's a simple story of survival mixed with criminal activity. On the other hand, it's about a woman coming to terms with the fact that her man isn't good for her and after some independence, realizes that she's better without him, to which he vehemently objects. It's a story of female friendship too, coming after the one woman learns to listen rather than assume.

The bitter rice is a metaphor for working simply to survive at whatever they have to do to make a living. Doris Dowling (an American actress cast and dubbed into Italian) has hidden among the, female rice workers boarding a train to start their work season, facing objections from Silvia Mangano who has discovered that along with her husband Vittorio Gassman, Dowling is wanted by the police for robbery. But after the help of soldier Raf Vallone, the workers come to join Dowling's side. Eventually she too comes to accept Dowling, even becoming her best friend.

The most famous sequence in this is the dance thar Mangano does, joined by Vallone and the others towards the end, surprised by Gassman showing up out of nowhere and starting Dowling onto the path of seeing her husband as bad for her. The film is dark, brutal and yet sensual. Gassmam is like a bad drug his wife can't pick, and he plays the role with both charm and malevolence in a way that shows why Dowling can't escape him. Mangano is absolutely star bursting with the direction of Giuseppe De Santis strikingly original. Along with "Open City" and "The Bicycle Thief" a work of art that aided in changing European cinema forever. The advice of the rice worker to Dowling to communicate through singing while they work is a running theme throughout the movie.

It's a good movie, though maybe not a great one. What makes it stand out is the fact that it managed to be made at all. I mean -- Italy? 1948? I don't know how some of the period directors turned out decently done films like this one, "Open City," "Paisan," and the rest of the neorealist examples. Maybe it helps to have no money. Well, let me take that back because I ought to know better.

There are a lot of scenes of men and women hard at work in the rice fields of northern Italy, but the film captures little of the backbreaking quality of that work. Everybody seems to be enjoying herself, although there are arguments between the contract workers and the scabs. They overcome their differences and finally work together. A bit of Marx never hurt anyone.

The thing is, rice planting, tending, and harvesting is horribly burdensome toil. You stand in mud up to your calves, bent over, working with your hands under the murk. And the film doesn't give us any of the exhaustion that follows. You get a better hint in "The Grapes of Wrath" when Pa Joad finishes his hamburger, stands up, stretches stiffly, and says something like, "You wouldn't think a couple hours of pickin' fruit would make a body ache so." The two principal women are the sullen but good Doris Dowling, who looks very much like her sister, Constance, Danny Kaye's inamorata in "Up In Arms." Dowling was of Irish ancestry. She had a long career, mostly in television, not being an exceptionally striking beauty.

The other woman, driven by lust and greed but not unsympathetic, is Sylvana Mangano. She's a good enough actress and of considerable heft for an eighteen year old. I approve of the fact that she doesn't shave her arm pits. She has a majestic bosom that, if set free from its tight confines, would devastate the countryside, smothering cities, wiping out whole populations, and in the end denuding earth of all life. Those Michelangelos yet unborn would remain unborn.

There's a sub plot involving the randy but fundamentally decent guy, Raf Vallone. I could never understand what women saw in him -- a large and hairy guy with a big bony face. Then there is the treacherous, lying thief, Vittorio Gassman, who switches women the way some men switch socks. He plans to undermine the entire enterprise at the expense of the workers. That slight groan you hear comes from Highgate Cemetery as Karl Marx struggles to roll over.

I realize it's beside the point but I have to mention that I sat through the first half of this movie two generations ago, in one of those big movie palaces on Market Street in San Francisco, hoping to see a little flesh. And just about the time the ladies were rolling up their skirts the theater lurched forward, then backward, like a ride in an amusement park. The earthquake sent me dashing out into the street. For half a century I've been wondering how it all turned out.