Critics reviews

Regardless of its accolades, it's somewhat safe in how it translates the material to the big screen. As Dave Kehr notes in his review for the Chicago Reader, it's directed "in the strident style of early television," the pace and unevenness mimicking the aggressively compact medium.

After Lancaster, the main trouble with The Rose Tattoo is the absence of any unifying tone. The line between drama and farce is always very thin in a Williams play. Williams has them separated in his mind, no doubt, but unless he has a director like Kazan to keep the line rigid, his scripts degenerate in the playing. Daniel Mann is still relatively new in the film medium, and although his direction shows some promise, he is still weak in developing a unified conception for his actors.