Publisher: CinemaSerf December 22, 2024
When "Maj. Joppolo" (John Hodiak) and his squad arrive in the eponymous Italian town, he finds it's war-weary population apprehensive of yet another conqueror telling the what they can and cannot do. His challenge is made even more difficult when he receives orders that will constrain the movements of the villagers and that means their drinking water and food will become even harder to obtain. The major decides to countermand these commands and gradually starts to build quite robust relationship with the locals who begin to admire his integrity and respect for them and the rule of law. The bell? Well that's been merrily chiming away from their small church for seven hundred years until it was required for the war effort. They want it back! He puts his bloodhounds onto the case, but what chance? Meantime he starts to befriend the charming young "Tina" (Gene Tierney) who is pining for her love who is away fighting in the war. The two start to bond as he also misses his wife back home in the USA - then the two of them get some separate doses of bad news that will impact on both of their futures. Have they still time to sort out a bell, though? Though Hodiak and Tierney take top billing, the real stars for me here were the locals. A motley collection of fast-talking Italians who epitomise a spirit of defiance, mischief and religiosity as they come to terms with this latest version of freedom whilst dealing with some of the consequences of their recent Fascist past. It addresses issues of collaboration, but in quite a friendly fashion that is more about unscrupulous war profiteering and skullduggery and less to do with politics. Everyone had to play the game, and in that it offers us a salutary lesson of the issues and dangers faced by those living day-by-day in wartime Italy; even one that was now ostensibly free. Maybe not the most Italian of names, but Monty Banks has some fun, as does Fortunio Bonanova as the the feather-hatted "Gargano" - their ebullient local policeman. The whole film has a certain feel-good factor that probably offered a cheering tonic in 1945, and I quite enjoyed it.