Bitter Rice (1949) on Netflix
Police search a station for the thieves who stole a necklace as women leave for the rice paddies. Francesca escapes with it and meets Silvana, who doubts her story.
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- Rotten Tomatoes100%
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Plot summary
A necklace is stolen, and police patrol the station where crowds of women board trains for the rice paddies of the Po Valley, looking for the thieves. Walter is identified, and Francesca gets away with the necklace aboard the planters' train. There she befriends Silvana, a fellow worker who suspects she is lying about her identity and shows her the planters' way of life. Without a work permit, Francesca joins the undocumented women competing for a place in the fields. At the lodgings, she and Silvana meet Marco, a soldier about to be discharged who tries without success to attract Silvana's interest.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Bitter Rice (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Giuseppe De Santis wanted an "Italian Rita Hayworth" for the lead of Bitter Rice, and his first choice for the part was Lucia Bosè, who did not get it.
- Bitter Rice gave Silvana Mangano her first credited screen role; before it she had appeared only in a handful of uncredited parts.
- The film was also the screen debut of Raf Vallone, who at the time was working as a writer for the newspaper L'Unità .
- Silvana Mangano's speaking voice in Bitter Rice was dubbed by Lydia Simoneschi, though the singing voice heard in the film is Mangano's own.
- In 2008 Italy's Ministry of Cultural Heritage placed Bitter Rice on its list of 100 Italian films to be saved, films said to have changed the country's collective memory between 1942 and 1978.
