{"id":10500,"date":"2015-01-21T21:03:47","date_gmt":"2015-01-22T02:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10500"},"modified":"2015-03-05T16:18:02","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T21:18:02","slug":"br-secret-of-santa-vittoria-the-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10500","title":{"rendered":"BR: Secret of Santa Vittoria, The (1969)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\"SecretOfSantaVittoria_BR\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Twilight Time<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a0All<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0August 12, 2014<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Drama \/ Comedy<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A small Italian town rallies behind their buffoon mayor and hide 1.3 million bottles of fine local wine from an incoming Nazi division during the final days of WWII.<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0Isolated stereo & mono music track \/ Original Theatrical Trailer \/ 8-page colour booklet with liner notes by film historian Julie Kirgo \/ Limited to 3000 copies \/ Available exclusively from\u00a0Screen Archives Entertainment<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Based on the international best-selling novel by Robert Crichton (The Great Impostor<\/b>,\u00a0The Camerons<\/b>) and adapted by the venerable Ben Maddow (The Asphalt Jungle<\/b>,\u00a0The Mephisto Waltz<\/b>) and William Rose (Genevieve<\/a><\/b>,\u00a0The Flim-Flam Man<\/a><\/b>),\u00a0The Secret of Santa Vittoria<\/b>\u00a0is often referred by affectionate fans as \u2018that film about hiding wine from the Nazis\u2019 during WWII, often without a full memory of the actual film title.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a crazy plot hook that also places the film in a small, small sub-genre of comedic films involving wine \u2013 the others including\u00a0Sideways<\/b>\u00a0(2004),\u00a0Year of the Comet<\/b>\u00a0(1992) \u2013 but\u00a0Vittoria<\/b>\u00a0is a genuine period piece, set in an idyllic mountaintop village populated by boisterous, colourful rustic Italian characters, and that\u2019s part of the film\u2019s conundrum: had the film been a full Italian production, the caricatures of \u2018crazy lovable Italians\u2019 may have been less severe, but add a bloated length to this American production, and it\u2019s an often uneven attempt to create an absurdist film in which locals outwit evil Nazi occupiers.<\/p>\n

Stanley Kramer\u2019s penchant for provocative dramas tackling contemporary social issues dominated much of his career \u2013 standouts include the anti-nuclear war drama\u00a0On the Beach<\/b>\u00a0(1959), the Scopes monkey trial in\u00a0Inherit the Wind<\/b><\/a>\u00a0(1960), and Nazi war crimes in what\u2019s perhaps his masterwork,\u00a0Judgment at Nuremberg<\/b><\/a>\u00a0(1961) \u2013 but in need of something lighter, Kramer also undertook the super-extravaganza, mega-supremo, l’ultimo-totales comedy to top all comedies,\u00a0It\u2019s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World<\/a><\/b>\u00a0(1963) which ran about 3 hours long.<\/p>\n

Kramer isn\u2019t a comedy director, and without a film packed with iconic, self-sustaining, and highly competitive vaudeville geniuses as was the case with Mad<\/strong>, he had to rely on skilled character actors, a rock solid script, and his own intuition on when pacing needs a little tightening. Vittoria<\/strong> isn\u2019t lethargic or dull, but its first third is more or less vignettes of bucolic townsfolk than character development, but once the story kicks in \u2013 the Nazis are coming to take all the wine! \u2013 the film finds its groove, and even secondary characters achieve some resonance in spite of the chief battle of wits between Anthony Quinn and Hardy Kruger.<\/p>\n

Quinn’s characterization of the town buffoon could also be seen as a reprise of\u00a0Zorba the Greek<\/b>\u00a0(1964) \u2013 grandiose, merry, and a lover of food, wine, and women \u2013 but Bombolini is the town idiot, a drunkard, and a goofball chosen by the outgoing Fascists Mayor & Co. to succeed them, \u00a0transform the office into a mockery, and thereby return town sympathy back to the Fascists in spite of Mussolini having been arrested by the Nazis.<\/p>\n

Bombolini proves to be a clown with some sly skills (better applied when sober) and a foil for Nazi Capt. Von Prum (Kruger), who repeatedly thinks he\u2019s pegged Bombolini’s scheme and discovered the location of the town\u2019s secret wine stock, but he never gets full satisfaction.<\/p>\n

As a solo character, Bombolini can\u2019t sustain the film, hence the recurring appearances and involvement of his loud and ferocious wife Rosa (Anna Magnani), the puppy love affair between daughter Angela (Patrizia Valturri) and young idealist Fabio (a ridiculously young Giancarlo Giannini), and the mountain of attraction between ex-ant-Fascist fighter Tufa (opera singer Sergio Franchi in a rare dramatic film role) and Caterina (stunning Virna Lisi), widow and heir to the town\u2019s biggest family fortune.<\/p>\n

Leopoldo Triest (The White Shiek<\/a><\/b>,\u00a0Bay of Blood<\/a><\/b>) plays his role of town council whip very<\/em> broad, if not cartoon-like, whereas Eduardo Ciannelli (Mackenna\u2019s Gold<\/b>) has a small role as a grumpy town council elder, and there are small background touches which enhance the ridiculousness of Bombolini\u2019s tenure \u2013 especially a painting in council chambers which is no better, no less undignified than Mussolini\u2019s portrait which formerly graced the office: the painting of new mayor Bombolini is rendered not in a neo-Fascist style, but like a\u00a0 cartoon caricature from Gerald Potter\u2019s animated Animal Farm!<\/p>\n

Kramer\u2019s instincts in milking as much local colour from the fabulous mountain village, the surreal quality of an immense modern water tower jutting up from ancient buildings (\u2018Mussolini is always right!\u2019), exploiting the lovely sloping hills of the vineyard, and staging one exceptional montage in which the villagers band together as four human conveyor belts to transport 1.3 million bottles of wine into a clever hiding place are brilliant, but it also helps having Giuseppe Rotunno (The Leopard<\/a><\/b>,\u00a0Candy<\/a><\/b>,\u00a0Amarcord<\/a><\/b>) as cinematographer, and Ernest Gold as composer, the latter underscoring the magnificent visages of local Italians young and especially old as they move those precious bottles into a secrete nook.<\/p>\n

Less effective is an epic marital fight where Rosa flings as many household implements at Bombolini\u2019s head in an early fracas that sends him packing, but it\u2019s perhaps the lone sequence where Kramer felt he just had to stage something a little epic along the lines of\u00a0Mad<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps shocking to viewers is a dark tone that moves into the story when Caterina may well give in to von Prum\u2019s sexual overtures, and the town’s rather grisly sacrifice to a pair of SS monsters that does ensure the wine\u2019s safety, but reveals the town\u2019s selfishness in safeguarding wine over human lives.<\/p>\n

Bloated at 140 mins., Vittoria<\/strong> reportedly didn\u2019t fare well upon its theatrical release, but it\u2019s grown into a minor classic, perhaps from TV airings and a collective memory among fans of a curious story with absurd moments and a great cast.<\/p>\n

Twilight Time\u2019s Blu-ray features a very lovely HD transfer and clean mono soundtrack. Gold\u2019s stereo score, released on CD, is expanded in an isolated track between surviving mono cues from the isolated music stems, and Julie Kirgo\u2019s liner notes provide a good overview of the novel\u2019s popularity, and the film\u2019s cult status – \u00a0something Kramer probably never expected to befall the film.<\/p>\n

Quinn would play another\u00a0Zorba<\/b>\u00a0riff in\u00a0A Dream of Kings<\/b><\/a>\u00a0that same year, co-starring with Irene Papas. Magnani would appear in a few TV productions, passing away in 1973 after appearing in Frederico Fellini\u2019s\u00a0Roma<\/b>\u00a0(1972).<\/p>\n

Franchi recalls the rather \u2018stoic\u2019 performance style of Bekim Fehmiu (The Adventurers<\/b>), but he\u2019s quite fine as a Communist rebel whom Bombolini consults, and it\u2019s interesting how the singer stayed away from movies thereafter, finding the long waits between filming deadly dull over performing for a live audience.<\/p>\n

Lisi, often cast as the hot chick in Hollywood fare (Assault on a Queen<\/a><\/b>) actually lends her role some vital gravitas, and she manages to avoid traversing into bathos when her character has an internal struggle with emotions and bout of self-loathing.<\/p>\n

Stanley Kramer would direct another nine films and teleplays before stepping away from directing in 1979, but\u00a0Vittoria<\/b>\u00a0seems to suggest that his period of relevance was dependent on hot button social topics, and much of what followed in the seventies lacked the power and depth of the films he produced in the fifties (Champion<\/b>,\u00a0The Men<\/b>,\u00a0High Noon<\/b>), and the human scope of the sixties, with even\u00a0Guess Who\u2019s Coming to Dinner<\/b>\u00a0(1967) feeling like an Important Statement for Change written expressly for middle class white audiences.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2015 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB \u00a0<\/a>— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a>\u00a0— Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on the international best-selling novel by Robert Crichton and adapted by the venerable Ben Maddow and William Rose, The Secret of Santa Vittoria is often referred by affectionate fans as \u2018that film about hiding wine from the Nazis\u2019 during WWII, often without a full memory of the actual film title…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3303,3296,3301,741,2350,3302,3300,3299,740,1175,735],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2Jm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10500"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10968,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10500\/revisions\/10968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}