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.

Plot

Serafina Delle Rose, 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 their second child. Estelle asks Serafina to make a shirt for her lover from expensive silk; Serafina does not know that the lover is Rosario and that Estelle has a tattoo of a rose on her chest to match his.

Awards