The Rose Tattoo (film)

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 in New Orleans 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.
Three years later, Serafina has become a recluse, allowing her appearance and reputation to deteriorate, to Rosa's embarrassment. Serafina decides to attend her daughter's graduation, but two women arrive demanding Serafina quickly mend their bandanas for a festival. Serafina reluctantly does so, but is appalled by their talk of men and reprimands them. One of the women, Bessie (Jo Van Fleet), takes offense and mocks Serafina with Rosario's infidelity. Serafina sits alone in the dark until Rosa comes home, and is infuriated when Rosa introduces her to her new sailor boyfriend Jack Hunter (Ben Cooper). After her interrogation, he confides that he is a virgin. She forces him to vow before a statue of the Virgin Mary that he will respect Rosa's innocence.
Determined to find out the truth about her husband, Serafina heads to the church (where a bazaar is being held) to ask the priest if her husband had confessed to an affair with another woman. When he refuses to answer, she attacks him, and a truck driver named Alvaro (Burt Lancaster) pulls her off. Alvaro drives the dazed Serafina home in his banana truck, where she offers to repair his torn shirt. Serafina loans Alvaro the rose silk shirt that she had sewn the night of her husband's death until she is able to repair it, and they agree to meet later that night. 
Alvaro returns, having impulsively gotten a rose tattooed on his chest. Serafina is disgusted and tries to throw him out, then demands that Alvaro drive her to a club her husband used to attend. Once there, she meets Estelle, who confesses and shows Serafina the rose tattooed on her chest as a symbol of her love for Rosario. Returning home, Serafina smashes the urn containing Rosario's ashes, and invites Alvaro to return in the night.
Alvaro turns up hours later severely intoxicated and, mortified by his actions, Serafina leaves him in a drunken stupor and retires to bed. That night Rosa returns home and falls asleep on the sofa; Alvaro awakens and, still drunk, mistakes Rosa for Serafina and tries to kiss her; Rosa wakes up and screams, and Serafina gets rid of him.
The following morning Serafina finds him on top of a boat mast outside her house begging for her forgiveness. Serafina and Rosa are extremely embarrassed and Serafina refuses to leave the house in order to make him come down, much to Rosa's frustration. At that moment Jack arrives and asks Serafina if he can marry Rosa. Serafina is stunned, but seeing that this is what Rosa wants she gives them her consent and they leave to be married. Serafina then calls Alvaro down from the boat mast before declaring in front of her neighbors that they have to pick up from where they left off the night before. They enter her house and shut the door. A lively pop tune is heard starting up on Serafina's player piano, along with the sounds of their partying and laughter.
Production and release.
Much of the film was shot on location in Key West, Florida, although the setting is not specifically mentioned in the film. The house featured in the film stands to this day and is known, appropriately, as the "Rose Tattoo House".
The premiere of the movie was held in New York City at the Hotel Astor on December 2, 1955, with Arthur Miller, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield among the celebrities in attendance.

She finished "Adeeb Fazil" degree in Urdu and learned Persian language also. She had become a voracious reader in her teenage years and read everything that she chanced upon — ranging from the works of Dostoyevsky to the English dictionary published by Neval Kishore Press.
She struggled and fought to receive education, when women were not allowed to go to school. She studied at home and received a high school diploma through correspondence courses. After matriculation, there was a lot of family resistance to her taking admission in college but her brother, Syed Iftikhar Zaidi, paid for her tuition and helped her continue her formal education. In Pakistan she went on to obtain Bachelor of Arts in 1959 and master's in economics in 1961 from Punjab University, Lahore. Kishwar married her friend and a poet Yousuf Kamran and the couple have two sons. After her husband's death, she worked to raise her children and support the family.
Career.
Kishwar Naheed has 12 volumes of her poetry published from both Pakistan and India. Her Urdu poetry has also been published in foreign languages all over the world. Her famous poem 'We Sinful Women' (), affectionately referred to as a women's anthem among Pakistani feminists, gave its title to a groundbreaking anthology of contemporary Urdu feminist poetry, translated and edited by Rukhsana Ahmad and published in London by The Women's Press in 1991.
Kishwar Naheed has also written eight books for children and has won the prestigious UNESCO award for children's literature. Her love for children is as much as her concern for women. She expresses this concern in her poem, "Asin Burian We Loko", which is a touching focus on the plight of women in the present male-dominated society. Naheed has served major positions in various national institutions. She was Director General of Pakistan National Council of the Arts before her retirement. She also edited a prestigious literary magazine Mahe Naw and founded an organisation Hawwa (Eve) whose goal is to help women without an independent income become financially independent through cottage industries and selling handicrafts.
Politics and Feminism.
Kishwar Naheed has been witness to the struggles and aspirations that Pakistan has gone through as a nation. Her written work, spanning for more than four decades, chronicles her experiences as a woman writer engaged in the creative and civic arenas, even as she has dealt with personal, social, and official backlashes.
Months after the Partition of India – a little before her family moved to Lahore from Bulandshahr – Kishwar saw something which left a lasting impression on her mind and her heart. The pain and sadness she felt in those moments have stayed with her forever. Some Muslim girls who belonged to Bulandshahr were kidnapped during the Partition riots. Either they succeeded in running away from their captors or were rescued, they arrived back in Bulandshahr. Some were known to her family and she accompanied her mother and sisters to go see them. They looked haggard, exhausted and broken. Surrounded by other women who were trying to console them, they were all lying down on the floor or reclined against the walls in a large room. The feet of these women were badly bruised and soaked in blood. That was the moment when Kishwar Naheed says she stopped being just a child and became a girl child. She became a woman. She still remembers those blood soaked feet and says ""women and girls anywhere have their feet soaked in blood. Very little has changed over the decades. This must end"."
Influenced by the Progressive Writers' Movement in South Asia and the ideals of socialism, Kishwar Naheed witnessed major international political upheavals; Pakistan was under martial law and new ideas and forms were being introduced and appreciated in Urdu literature. Kishwar and her friends got involved in everything. One day they would take a procession out in support of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Egyptian right over Suez Canal, the next day they would bring out a rally for Vietnam or Palestine or Latin America.
In an interview to the Pakistani monthly magazine, The Herald (Pakistan), Kishwar Naheed commenting on censorship says:
"we must not forget that creative writers and artists do not live in isolation. It is natural to react to and comment on the political and social circumstances in which one lives. On one hand, it is said that creative people are more sensitive and concerned while, on the other hand, it is argued that they must confine themselves to writing about themselves or their inner feelings. It is fine that we should write about our inner feelings but when Malala [Yousafzai] was shot or girl schools in Swat were being razed to the ground, it was my inner feeling that I wrote about. My poems will now be seen as a critical social comment and some may call these political poems but these poems represent my inner feelings...Creativity cannot be regulated nor should it be. Who would know this better than a woman writer or artist who has to struggle all her life to be able to express what she feels and thinks, to be able to articulate the way she wishes to articulate, to be able to present to the world what she wishes to present in her own unique way."
""This freedom to write and express has come through a struggle drenched in tears"."
Kishwar Naheed also champions the cause of peace in South Asia and has played a significant role in promoting Pakistan India People's Forum and South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Writers Forum. She has participated in global literary and cultural movements bringing together writers and artists who believe in a fair and equitable global political order. Her powerful poems against extremist religious thought, violence, terrorism and increased suffering of women and girls due to radicalization have created waves locally and internationally.
Literary Works.
Kishwar Naheed is widely acclaimed for her sharp and incisive poetic expression, for being bold and direct, and, for celebrating the universal human struggle for equality, justice and freedom. She also writes a regular weekly newspaper column in Daily Jang. Commentators and critics have noticed that, with time, her voice has grown "louder, more insistent and somehow more intimate". 
Her first poetry collection was "Lab-e Goya", published in 1968, that won the Adamjee Literary Award.