Alicia I love this movie so much

Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

GrimPrecise I'll tell you why so serious

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

rdoyle29 Thieves Doris Dowling and Vittorio Gassman are fleeing the cops with some stolen jewelry when they get separated at a train station. Dowling hides out by joining a transport train for women going to work as rice pickers. She befriends rice picker Silvana Mangano, and all is good until Mangano figures out who she really is ... and then Gassman shows up. A remarkable blend of neorealism with a social message and straight up genre exploitation. While the film draws a vivid portrait of what life is like for women working at the grueling job, it also REALLY highlights their boobs and bare legs ... and ends with violent crime film happenings. I kind of love this film.

JohnHowardReid Not copyright 1948 by Lux Films. New York opening in a sub-titled version at the World: 18 September 1950. U.S. release through Lux Films (sub-titled version) on 21 September 1950 and through Italian Films Export (dubbed version) in 1952. London opening of the sub- titled version at the Rialto, around March 1950. U.K. release of this version through Gelardi, Rashbrooke. Australian release in an English-dubbed version by RKO Radio Pictures: 7 March 1952. Sydney opening at the Esquire. Running times: 112 minutes (Australia), 103 minutes (London), 107 minutes (New York), 93 minutes (U.S. dubbed version).Original Italian title: RISO AMARO.NOTES: Giuseppe de Santis and Carlo Lizzani were nominated for the 1950 Academy Award for Best Motion Picture Story, losing to "Panic in the Streets."COMMENT: Italian films of the forties and early fifties always pose a bit of an aural dilemma for me. I mean the dubbing. On the whole, I have a preference for the English-dubbed version because in most cases the British or American stars post-sync their own voices, whereas in the Rome version, none of the players — aside from the really big stars like Anna Magnani, Gino Cervi and Amedeo Nazzari — are allowed anywhere near a microphone. It's strange to hear Vittorio Gassman's distinctively throaty voice replaced by a bland radio actor's; and equally disconcerting to find Silvana's peasant girl speaking beautifully cultured high class.Of course, "Bitter Rice" was such a sensational success, it launched not only Mangano, but Gassman and Vallone as well, on to the international scene. Gassman was offered a Hollywood contract and before long was co-starring opposite the likes of Elizabeth Taylor. Mangano continued her career after marrying this film's producer in 1949. Incidentally, "Bitter Rice" was not her first film. She'd previously made L'elisir d'amore for director Mario Costa in 1947. And she was eighteen, not seventeen, when she starred in Riso Amaro.Alas, the film did nothing for the waning career of that ultra- classy siren of "The Blue Dahlia", Doris Dowling. Forced to play second fiddle to Mangano, she's not only dowdily dressed but robbed of her distinctive voice.I thought the attempt to marry documentary neo-realism with a melodramatic plot worked rather well. The realistic backgrounds made the story seem far more credible, whilst at the same time the more sensational aspects of the story lend an added power and poignancy to the plight of the rice workers. The four leading characters are skillfully delineated. The writers give them enough quirks to make their behavior and reactions individualistic without descending into caricature.Director De Santis and photographer Martelli's probing camera explore the teeming settings to the full, assisted by a no-holds- barred budget and an appropriately atmospheric music score.

wvisser-leusden Although its mold of 1949 appears somewhat melodramatic today, the black and white 'Riso Amaro' (= Italian for 'Bitter Rice') surely ranks among the classics in film history.This very Italian product by Guiseppe de Santis shows a pretty ordinary crime story, excellently interwoven with an impressive decor of harsh season labor in the rice-fields of Northern Italy. The thousands of women, up to their ankles in the water, breaking their backs in the burning sun to earn a few bucks, make a truly great setting.'Riso Amaro' has been labeled as 'neo-realism'. Another issue worth mentioning is its female lead Silvana Mangano, ex miss Rome. To the standards of 1949 miss Mangano's performance in this film was shocking. This earned 'Riso Amaro' a lot of publicity, in particular in strongly Roman Catholic Italy.

MartinHafer For the first 75% of this film, I wasn't particularly interested in the film. Most of the reason was that I found the female leads to be so stupid, as they debased themselves repeatedly to gain the favor of a horrid petty crook. I guess this realistic, as some women do this, but I felt no connection to the characters, so my attention waned.Fortunately, I did continue watching, because as the film developed further, so did the characters. And, this was all capped off by a dandy ending that I WON'T elaborate on because this would ruin the film.This film is a Neo-Realistic Italian film, in that most of the actors were apparently not professionals and the subject matter was rather mundane (this is not meant to be an insult--just a comment about the style of film). While I didn't like it nearly as much as De Sica's films of that era, it was well worth watching and better than many other Neo-Realistic films.FYI--parents should know that although this is an older film, there is some nudity. It's not super explicit, but does occur in the film.