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)

I read some reviews about this movie and I decided to give it a try, expecting I'll get bored in ten minutes and switch to something else. I kept watching and by the end of it I realized it was just wonderful.It's not necessarily a movie about ideas and ideals, about poverty and working class or even about love. The director seemed more preoccupied with capturing feelings, and he does so, frame by frame. I so much longed for a movie of that kind.The movie starts with a woman named Francesca who, together with her boyfriend, stole some jewelry and ends up hiding among the rice workers one the Italian fields. In one of the opening scenes, her boyfriend dances with one of the younger rice workers, Silvana who takes an instant liking in him. The two girls end up on the same rice farm together where they meet a young soldier. Francesca likes the soldier but he simply ignores her, being blinded by the youth and beauty of Silvana. In the end, Silvana rejects him and falls for Francesca's boyfriend. The movie owes some of its unforgettable moments to that delicious sexual tension between these four people.The other thread of action is related to the work in the rice fields. The workers, all women sacrifice their health for a kilogram of rice per day. The desperation of poverty is all poured in the scenes in which the women all work together for their miserable wages. Neither Francesca, nor Silvana or the two men belong to this world. However, as the movie approaches its conclusion the two women become aware of the feelings that grew inside them as they toiled 40 days in the rice fields. They are now just like those other workers. These feelings flood the hearts of the two women when all they worked for is threatened by the thief's greed and the soldier's indifference. There flooding of the rice is the supporting metaphor for the rush of feelings in the two women.The soundtrack, although rarely the focus of the action is, very effective. I would only mention the climactic fallen angel scene in which the music alone tells the story.All in all, this is a masterpiece and it deserves many viewings.

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 !!

First saw Bitter Rice in 1949 and it has haunted me for 51 years. Recently rented it (2000) and it's still compelling. The verrismo genre was new at the time; in 2000 it doesn't have the same impact that it did when Open City, Bicycle Thief, La Strada, et al were all showing at about the same time, and showing us that there was a true, artistic alternative to Hollywood pap.The then 18-year old Silvana Mangano's earthy performance will endure forever. My only memory from 1949 was of her working and chanting in the rice fields. And her doing a sensual Lindy with Vittorio Gassman. Those scenes were still compelling, half a century later.