marcslope This "women's director" was also no slouch with men, and he helps Anthony Quinn to perhaps his best performance. Quinn often overacted, and here, as a hearty, swaggering, brutish sheep rancher who brings his dead wife's sister (Anna Magnani) over from Italy to marry, he easily could have resorted to his usual bluster. But it's a very shaded portrayal, with seemingly conflicting elements of roughness and tenderness that make sense in the end. Magnani is predictably great, even singing well, and Tony Franciosa, as Quinn's adopted son who forms an O'Neill-like triangle (it does feel like "Desire Under the Elms," as another commenter noted), is excellent. The outdoorsiness and earthiness (you even see a lamb born, before your boggled eyes) are un-Cukorlike, but he handles them confidently; and while the symbolism gets a little heavy and Dmitri Tiomkin's music is a bit intrusive, it's an effective family melodrama with a beautifully underplayed fadeout.

jcappy Cukor's "Wild is the Wind" seems to be a kind of tribute to Fellini's classic "La Strada." He made his film just a couple years later, and sets it up along very similar lines. He selects Antony Quinn, Zampano for Fellini, to be his male lead, Gino. And chooses the forceful Anna Magnani (Gioia) to equal Guiletta Masina's rather astonishing performance in the central role of Gelsomina in "La Strada." Gino, the Nevada ranch owner, is the same kind of brutish, brooding hunk as is the strong man performer in "La Strada." They act in the masculine mode, determined, gusty, sometimes cruel, and in different senses, heroically alone. It is perhaps the poverty of the former and Gino's outsider status (Italian in Nevada) that open each up to change, and redemption. Each, however, is hardened against the actual woman--whoseservice he demands, and whose body he exploits--who offers that change.Gioia, like her parallel, Gelsomina, is a replacement for a dead sister. Zampano purchases Gelsomina after his Rosa dies. Gino orders Gioia as a mail order bride to replace his wife who died after several desperate attempts to give him a child. Both women find themselves trapped in a feelingless, cold, abusive relationship, removed from human response and the natural world. They are owned--body and soul, and are, of course, interchangeable with their sisters.But Gioia's resistance, like that of her predecessor, is central. Each woman is engaged, through a compelling range of small acts and facial expressions--they are FACES above all else--in a form of survival which doubles as opposition. What the man denies, they affirm, what he kills, they save. Each is strongly in touch with the needless suffering endured by humans and animals, and are sickened by the acts that cause it . And each is more bold than pleasing, more spirited than spiritual, and more troubling than tamed.Both women have one or two male allies who bear some similarity. Bene (Tony Francioso) seems related to "La Strada"s tightrope walker (Richard Basehart): both men serving as alternative male's who have understanding and sympathy for these held women, and for the natural world they defend. They create space an breathing room--Bene's lust seems out of character. And then too each, in the end, leaves these women to the mercy of their oppressive situation. (Alberto, Gino's older brother, is perhaps a more practical ally than these two, however: it is his unusually direct and touching challenge to his brother that forces him to perceive Gioia as a person.) All the major roles of La Strada are more convincing and consistent, and thus the ending is more powerful. Gino's redemption is also secured at a much lower cost than Zampano's, which has to do with the weaker script/plot than and not his less rigid nature. However "Wild is the Wind," given Cukor's Hollywood models and restraints, measures up quite well to Fellini's classic.

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!

charles-pope Its not enough to say that Johnny Mathis sings the title song over the opening credits.With Cukor directing this grand meeting of Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani thats says enough.The plot has its melodramatic moments for sure and its another film with the wonderful Dolores Hart who only a few years alter would become a nun.This also has the merits of Anthony Franciosca really playing his best role for many years in films.Franciosca, falls for Magnani in a lustful way while Quinn is away from the ranch.Its really the sweeping scenes and the acting of Quinn and Magnani that moves the film.Looking back , it would have been a treasure to see Magnani act in more US Films ( The Rose Tattoo) but that didn't happen. Finally , in her eyes we see how she made " Open City" ( Rosselini) a memorable film. Produced by the best...Hal Wallis CP