The Black Orchid (1959)

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

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.

"The Black Orchid", a fairly anonymous picture by director Martin Ritt ("Hud", "Hombre" etc), stars Sophia Loren as Rose Bianco, a widowed florist who strikes up a relationship with widower Frank Valente (Anthony Qinn). Other subplots deal with Frank's grown up daughter, Mary (Ina Balin), who's reluctant to leave home and marry a man of her own; she fears that doing so will constitute an abandonment of her father.Indeed, virtually everyone in the film fears abandonment. Rose's son, stuck in a boarding school, feels discarded, as do Rose and Frank, who've been abandoned by their respective spouses, and Mary herself, who desires not to be torn away from her father. The film ends with these anxieties resolved, new connections made and bridges built.Amongst the cast, actor Anthony Quinn stands out; he's as infectious as usual. Sophia Loren is stiff, but this fits her role. The film was directed by Martin Ritt, who would go on to do a number of far more interesting films.7/10 – Worth one viewing.

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.

The soon-to-be-married daughter of a handsome widower is furious when her father starts dating the widow of a gangster. Anthony Quinn and Sophia Loren are quite good as the older lovers whose romance hits a family obstacle (Quinn, in particular, is well-attuned to his role), but the stereotypical Italian characters get to be a bit much. One can understand why Quinn's daughter is reluctant to let go of her papa (she's been mother and daughter to him for years), but her overwrought behavior--not to mention her over-acting--creates an hysterical mood which nearly undermines the love story. Martin Ritt directed, staging the piece with sensitivity yet never allowing the characters and their emotions to bloom. **1/2 from ****