Bitter Rice

Synopsis

This is the film that broke Italian Neorealism at the domestic Italian box office and had arthouse patrons lining up around the block in the cosmopolitan centers of the world. The great success was partly because of its depiction of poor but honorable female rice-field workers who become entangled in a criminal plot foisted upon them by a charming hood (Vittorio Gassman). But the main part of the appeal was the up-and-coming actress Silvana Mangano as a worker who is seduced by the easy money and easy virtue of the criminal life.