mark.waltz What's a sheep herder to do when his beloved Italian wife dies? Marry her extra earthy sister of course! Anthony Quinn is the lusty rancher who almost instantaneously looses her not yet full love by referring to her with her sister's name. The luscious. Anna Magnani, fresh from The Rose Tattoo, adds another unforgettable performance to her few English language films, a characterization so rich that you can't see her as anything other as gorgeous even though she lacks typical Hollywood sex appeal.Magnani's appeal comes from deep inside where true beauty exists. Watch her almost girl-like joy erupt when she speaks her first words of English. Then when she finds the wild horse she wants only to tame so much, wait for her sudden disappointment when Quinn makes the now tame stallion pull a buggy for her, a metaphor for her own refusal to be tamed. The wild, yet love-starved Magnani falls for Quinn's trusted ward, Anthony Franciosa, who struggles with guilt over his feelings towards her. In a very emotional scene between the two. Anthony's, Quinn takes male to male affection to a level never seen on screen before which is based on love, unique because there is no macho image desperate to hide it. The result is real and refreshing. Franciosa is not as showy as his earthier co-stars which helps level the intensity. A shocking scene involves the spontaneous birth of a sheep and another where Quinn tries to fool a sheep into thinking that an orphaned baby is hers so she will nurse it. Little details like this help this rise above its familiar story. The frothy opening theme song sets this American version of European new wave into first gear and never switches into neutral.

moonspinner55 Anthony Quinn is solid playing a sheep-farmer near Reno--still grieving after the death of his beloved wife--who marries his sister-in-law and brings her over from Italy. Vittorio Nino Novarese's story, which turns into a love-triangle after the new wife falls for the farmer's unofficially-adopted son, may have had some literary freshness...but on-screen the drama which slowly plays out looks like scraps from other pictures. The sheep-farm milieu is interesting if uncompelling, and certainly the brawling Italian family has been seen (and heard) before. The secretive lovers thread recalls Eugene O'Neill's "Desire Under the Elms" (a 1930s play filmed one year after this picture), and although Anna Magnani and Anthony Franciosa give their all to their roles, the relationship between the new Mrs. and the ranch-hand doesn't quite convince. Franciosa has seldom been so rugged and handsome, but what exactly does this strapping young man see in this Old World, somewhat-forlorn lady who is trying to learn English and fit in with this family? It's the missing piece to this puzzle which is never solved, and director George Cukor (doing uncharacteristically unsubtle work) bulldozes straight ahead without looking back. Good-looking melodrama with luscious scoring, some amusing family dynamics, but no intriguing ideas. **1/2 from ****

eliene50 This is one of my favorite movies with Anna Magnani, Tony Franciosa and Tony Quinn. If you find this movie anywhere, PLEASE, let me know and I will do the same for you! I have requested it at Turner Classic Movies and on AMC where I saw it for the first time! I will keep scanning those websites and if they put it on DVD, I will let you know! Thanks! Glad to see that somebody else appreciates this movie for the value that is in it! To me it is priceless!This movie, in my opinion, is one of Anna Magnani's greatest works, along with a cast of the great Anthony Quinn and also great actor, Anthony Franciosa! I cannot wait until they put this movie on DVD! Thank You!

dbdumonteil 1976:I've just bought the new Bowie album "Station to station" and there's a track I find quite intriguing;it 's called "Wild is the wind" .Bowie gives a grandiose overblown rendition which I love from the first listening.The authors are Tiomkin/Washington;at the time I did not know them at all,and I must confess I barely knew Cukor (I'd seen "gaslight" and that was all).For thirty years ,I've been hoping to have the opportunity to see the movie whose song I've been playing for years (still am) 2005:After watching most of Cukor's filmography ,I finally saw "Wild is the wind" today.I was eagerly waiting for the song and there's more suspense cause the movie does not begin with the cast and credits.After the five-minute prologue that's it!Well it's terribly different.It's sung by Johnny Mathis (not Nina Simone)and I must admit...it's not what I expected.It's typically fifties melodrama song .Now the movie.A movie which features Anna Magnani cannot be bad but I must say she's better in her native Italy (with Rossellini,Visconti,Pasolini et al).The Anthonys - Quinn the Eskimo and Anthony the Method - are good thespians and the story is interesting.An aging Italian whose wife passed away has her sister fly from Italy to marry her.And he begins to shape her personality, to break her as he does for the wild horse,in a nutshell,to make her a brand new Rosetta her first beloved wife.Symbolism is a bit overdone,ponderous (the horse,the ewe)but the actors can get away with it with gusto.Anna Magnani's metamorphosis during the movie is stunning,from a rather ugly gauche little woman with bags under her eyes to a bright Mediterranean beauty.Clint Eastwood might have remembered the lesson when he filmed Meryl Streep in his celebrated "bridges of Madison County" ,a return to the glorious fifties melodrama.Not a great Cukor,but a must for fans of melodramas and/or Magnani.