Cheap Black Orchid (1959) (Video) (Martin Ritt) Price

Related Products

Customer Reviews of Black Orchid (1959)

Mama I'm Happy
This movie has it all. Cheap sets, artificial lighting, melodramatic music and over-acting. Anthony Quinn is the only character that is remotely plausible and also the only reason I give this debacle 2 stars. If you are expecting a glamorous Sophia to make up for the movies flaws...don't. She spends the entire movie in basically the same black dress and pulled up hair-don't. <
> <
>And I haven't even mentioned the creepy incestuous father-daughter vibe. <
> <
>Avoid at all costs.

---

Nothing bad here....
Quinn's character is likeable and realistic, Sophia is sexy as ever, the performances are, for the most part, all very good to excellent, and the story line is interesting. There's nothing not to like about it!

---

Touching romance
There is more than a hint of the Oscar winning Marty in this quiet and well obseved drama ,shot in luminous black and white by Roberet Barr and directed with ecconomy and restraint by Martin Ritt.
Anthony Quinn palys a widower who falls in love with Rose Bianco -the Black Orchid of the title.She is a widow whose husband was entangled with the mob and killed in a mob hit.She is eking out a living working in an artificial flower company and worrying about her son who is a persistent escapeee from the county farm.Initially resistant she soon falls heavily for Quinn's rough hewn charms but there is an obstacle -the staunch opposition of his possessive daughter ,played by Ina Balin.
The movie is the story of the courtship and its eventual resolution .
Sterling performances by the leads and a strong musical score by Alessandro Cicognini compensate for the slighly over sentimental script but overall this a neglected little gem