Word: magnani
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Volcano (Panama; United Artists) is an eruptive drama set on Vulcano, one of the small (pop. 450), rugged Aeolian islands west of the toe of Italy. In a melodramatic manner, it tells the highly melodramatic story of a prostitute (Anna Magnani) banished by the Naples police to her native island after an absence of 18 years. There she finds her innocent young sister (Geraldine Brooks) in danger of being seduced by an unscrupulous diver (Rossano Brazzi). In the end, the prostitute kills the diver and dies in a volcanic eruption...
...melodramatic prodigality, Anna Magnani outdoes both story and setting. She acts the unhappy heroine with her whole vivid personality, slouching body, disheveled hair, grieving eyes and caged face. Not even a fumbling job of English-language dubbing can detract from her performance. Whether she is mourning the death of her dog, shouting obscenely at the islanders or tipsily singing a holiday song, she makes most other movie actresses look like pale blossoms indeed...
...with war-battered city streets for sets and with amateurs for performers, directors like Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio De Sica have given the world some of the finest movies ever made. They gave Italy a major industry, and treated moviegoers everywhere to the likes and looks of fiery Anna Magnani and smoky Silvana Mangano. Italian painters and sculptors, artistically confined under the Fascists, have broken free. The earthy realism of such Italian novelists as Moravia, Berto...
Releasing Corp.) is what the wife (Anna Magnani) of a poor Rome workingman calls her rather plain little pigtailed daughter (Tina Apicella). The mother has harddriving ambitions to make a movie actress out of her little "Most Beautiful," but in the end she turns down a film offer because she comes to the conclusion that her daughter should lead a simple, healthy family life instead...
...last-minute change of mind is unconvincing, and there is no real contrast between the make-believe film world and the world of actuality. Without this necessary social comment, Bellissima is little more than an overblown melodrama. As the overly ambitious mother, Italy's expert Actress Magnani gives one of her earthily explosive performances. The trouble is that the role she plays is too flimsy to sustain her powerful acting. Landfall (Associated British Picture Corp.; Stratford Pictures), based on Nevil Shute's 1940 novel, is done in the typically tightlipped, understated style of the best British movies...