Bitter Rice

Social drama meets sexed-up melodrama and rural crime caper in this 1949 film directed by Giuseppe De Santis and produced by future movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis. Vittorio Gassman stars as a small-time criminal who hides out from the police in Northern Italy's rice fields with his increasingly disillusioned girlfriend accomplice (Doris Dowling), while also romancing a sexy peasant worker (Silvana Mangano, only 18 at the time of filming; she married De Laurentiis later the same year) who falls for his insincere charm and promises of wealth. It's earthy stuff, with the all-woman rice harvest crew showing plenty of leg while toiling in the fields and lounging in lingerie between shifts. And the romantic triangle complicates the heist that Gassman concocts while hiding out in the grain warehouse. The exploration of the culture of the seasonal workers—women brought in by the thousands for the harvest season, with a few men around the fringes acting as little more than labor pimps—both in fields and at rest in their temporary barracks draws from the neorealist tradition and their conversations take on the political and social realities of post-WWII war life as they debate fair treatment and imagine better futures. De Santis, who also co-wrote with Carlos Lizzani, slips social commentary into this sexy thriller, which turns out to be a very entertaining mix of politics and hot-blooded melodrama (the film was Oscar nominated for its screenplay). Extras include a 2008 documentary on De Santis by Lizzani and a 2002 interview with Lizzani. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)