The Black Orchid (1959)

Touches You

Absolutely Fantastic

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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.

To this point in her American career, Italian actress Loren had starred mainly in big budget, Technicolor productions—e.g. Legend of the Lost, The Pride and the Passion, Boy on a Dolphin, (all 1957). Of course, such a format showed off her ample proportions for that mammary obsessed decade. I suspect this little b&w production was intended to help establish her as more than a sex goddess. And it does.She's quite good in the de-glamorized role of an embittered working widow, Rose. Despite her resistance, she's being intensely courted by prosperous business man, Frank (Quinn). Trouble is Frank's daughter Mary (Balin), is very possessive of dad and also thinks Rose is undeserving of him. So Mary creates problems that jeopardize not only dad's engagement but also her own—to nice guy Noble (Richman). If this sounds like tangled relationships, it is, especially when Rose's delinquent son (Baird) is added to the mix.Fortunately, the movie's well acted and directed (Ritt), which helps what turns out to be something of a soap opera. The first part comes across as mainly a character study as the hardened widow Rose fends off Frank's persistent gambits. However, once the relationships begin to spread and conflict, the screenplay takes on a more conventional tone. Also, looks like the movie was shot entirely on the Paramount lot. Thus, I expect they were able to squeeze it into her hectic schedule. Note too how subtly actress Loren expresses emotions with her eyes. That's probably something guys like me never noticed before. Despite the obscurity in Loren's canon, the film works as an engaging showcase for the two leads, and is not without its moments.

Well, I have to tell ya - Had Sophia Loren not been in The Black Orchid, then, you can bet, I would have probably rated this picture somewhat lower than I did.Not only do I consider Loren to be one of the greatest beauties of her day, but, besides being just another pretty face, she was really quite a competent actress, as well. Loren certainly had the ability to inject a sense of genuine believability into her character portrayals, as she did so here in The Black Orchid, as the recently widowed, Rose Bianco.I think it's kinda funny to note that at the time of filming The Black Orchid, Loren was 25 years old which, in reality, made her only 12 years older than the age of her character's son in the story.In this "Eat-Drink-And-Be-Merry" tale of love, Italian-style, Loren plays an unglamorous role of a struggling, single mother (with a few skeletons in her closet) who is being romantically pursued by a boisterous and persistent older man with a few family problems of his own.The Black Orchid's "lonely hearts" story (which was set in NYC) was basically something of a soap opera, and it really wasn't all that great. But because of Loren it earned itself 6 stars from yours truly.*Note* - Sophia Loren is now 80 years old.

"The Black Orchid" is about a widow (Sophia Loren) of a murdered mobster, who finds new love in the widower who lives next door, played with great verve and humor by the always-good Tony Quinn.The Quinn character's barely-grown up daughter (Ina Balin) lives with him and she strongly disapproves of him getting involved with a gangster's widow, even going so far as to lock herself in her room for days on end in protest.This was one of the lovely Balin's earliest screen roles, and I thought that she was very good and convincing. Even in scenes with gorgeous Sophia Loren, Ina's beauty and radiance were absolutely intoxicating!!The film also has many comedic moments, including the trip that Quinn and Loren's characters take to the boarding school where her son is attending.The end of the film, in which the two women settle their differences and make breakfast together, is very heartwarming and downright charming.Now, how would you like to have had Sophia Loren and Ina Balin prepare breakfast for YOU ??!!!