Alicia I love this movie so much

Console best movie i've ever seen.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

bkoganbing Black Orchid concerns the story of two neighbors both of whom lost their respective spouses and seem like a natural match for each other. But for their respective children the ship of romance would have some smooth sailing.Sophia Loren is a bit young to play a middle aged widow, but she carries it off beautifully. She was a bride fresh from Italy when she married her husband and she fell in love with the material wealth of America. It cost her husband his life when he turns to being a gangster to give his wife all she desires. She also shuns and is shunned by the neighborhood.Anthony Quinn is a widower whose wife died years earlier and left him to raise daughter Ina Balin who was making her big screen debut. Although she is engaged to Peter Mark Richman she wants him to move in with her and her father and Richman who has his business in another town wants his own household. As for Loren's kid Jimmy Baird he's on a youth farm for youthful offenders. How he reacts to his mother's new romance is a bit unusual but in keeping with how the adult characters are drawn in this drama.What I liked about Black Orchid is the sheer ordinariness of the people yet some great drama is played out across the screen. No heroes or villains, just people going about the day to day business of living. For a writer it's probably the most difficult to find a story with these characters, but it is done beautifully in Black Orchid.Case in point. Anthony Quinn and Sophia Loren were together before in the Italian film Attila where Quinn plays the title role the scourge of Europe and Loren is a pulchritudinous and seductive Roman princess. Two totally different types, but that's a tribute to the acting ability of the stars.This is a film that should get more attention and maybe it will some day.

pkryder-1 "The Black Orchid" is about a widow (Sophia Loren) of a murdered mobster, who finds new love in the widower who lives next door, played with great verve and humor by the always-good Tony Quinn.The Quinn character's barely-grown up daughter (Ina Balin) lives with him and she strongly disapproves of him getting involved with a gangster's widow, even going so far as to lock herself in her room for days on end in protest.This was one of the lovely Balin's earliest screen roles, and I thought that she was very good and convincing. Even in scenes with gorgeous Sophia Loren, Ina's beauty and radiance were absolutely intoxicating!!The film also has many comedic moments, including the trip that Quinn and Loren's characters take to the boarding school where her son is attending.The end of the film, in which the two women settle their differences and make breakfast together, is very heartwarming and downright charming.Now, how would you like to have had Sophia Loren and Ina Balin prepare breakfast for YOU ??!!!

Michael_Elliott Black Orchid, The (1958) *** (out of 4) Rose (Sophia Loren) is a young Italian woman who has just buried her husband who was murdered by the gangsters he worked for. Rose's depression soon takes another turn when her young son gets sent to a boarding school for breaking into parking meters. News gets even worse for her son after many attempts at running away, one more attempt will send him into a reform school where he won't get released until he is much older. With all the heartbreak going on, Rose spends her evenings alone making what money she can.Down the street is Frank (Anthony Quinn), another widower who is getting ready to see his only daughter married. Frank is the type who keeps a smile on his face no matter how much bad luck life delivers him. When he first sees Rose he notices her extreme beauty but soon he becomes interested in the person that he has so much in common with. Rose finally drops her guard and the two become quick friends and soon start to fall in love but Frank's daughter, bitter with jealousy, refuses to let their relationship go anywhere.Perhaps I missed something or the entire film went over my head but the back of the DVD case called this a sensitive comedy romance and a couple other film books I owned called this a bittersweet romantic comedy but I certainly didn't find any comedy in The Black Orchid. Why this film would be called a comedy is beyond me but it's certainly romantic in the sense of meeting two lonely people who must travel a hard road and learn tough lessons before seeing a greener field.The movie has its heart in the right place, although near the end things start to tumble a little bit. The biggest key to the film is its two stars who both turn in wonderfully charming performances. Sophia Loren has always been known for her beauty, which is in pull blossom here but she also manages to be quite believable as the distraught widow trying to make good for her troubled son. Loren does a very good job during various quiet scenes where she must confront her past and she also fairs very well in her louder, bleaker moments where she's trying to push people away from her.The key highlight to the film is Anthony Quinn who was an actor who never received enough praise for his work. Quinn gives one of the most charming performances I've ever seen in a film and this here really brings the relationship of all the characters together. No matter who he's sharing the screen with Quinn sells the viewer on each subject brought up and we can't help but want him to smile and be happy no matter what. Quinn features a certain grace that makes him appear to float through his scenes and this adds all the believability that a viewer will need.They certainly don't have star chemistry like this any more and that's one shame when it comes to people refusing to watch older films. Director Martin Ritt (Norma Rae, Stanley & Iris) does a very nice job at holding the film together and not letting the melodrama become too thick, although his selection for the music score is really distracting. The score seems to be something from The Twilight Zone, which really isn't needed here. The biggest problem with the film is the forced, if cute, ending and some of the scenes with the daughter become very obnoxious and annoying. Other than that The Black Orchid offers two great stars the ability to shine and create a wonderfully quiet little film that has enough charm to make it worth watching.

esteban1747 Martin Ritt was a very good director, but this film is not his best. Probably because the film was one of those he directed after being accused of being communist during the McCarthy's hunt. Two stars like Sophia Loren and Anthony Quinn together again for the second time (They were acting together in "Attila" 1954) made the film a good entertainment with a very happy end. Quinn's daughter is too egoist with his father because she does not want to share him with any other woman, and once noticed the new relationship with Sophia, a widow of a presumably maffia man, who also has a son sitting in farm school for children with problems of behavior. Sophia solved the problem Quinn had with his daughter (too simple way of solution) and Quinn was able to get the sympathy of her son and to take him back with them. I wish life could be like it was shown here, it was so simple and easy.