One of the earliest examples of how the Italian neorealist cinema of the 1940s succumbed to the dictates of Hollywood star glamor, BITTER RICE is nevertheless a good, moody film which captures the bare survival atmosphere of Italy after WWII, when the country lay in ruins and everyone
scraped for a living.
In this case it's the buxom, somewhat glamorized Mangano, who parades about in a bursting sweater, short-shorts and artfully torn nylons as she works with hundreds of other women in the rice fields of the Po Valley. (Notably, Mangano's presence in this film, shaped by future husband De Laurentiis,
prefigures the arrival of the so-called Italian "sexpot" actre...
Released:
1949
Rated:
NR
Length:
107 mins