Hornets' Nest
Encyclopedia
- For the Doctor WhoDoctor WhoDoctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
audio play see: Hornets' Nest (Doctor Who)Hornets' Nest (Doctor Who)Hornets' Nest is an audio play in five episodes based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is written by Paul Magrs, and stars Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates...
Hornets' Nest is a 1970
1970 in film
The year 1970 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* January 9 - Larry Fine, the second member of The Three Stooges, suffers a massive stroke, therefore ending his career....
Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
-American war film
War film
War films are a film genre concerned with warfare, usually about naval, air or land battles, sometimes focusing instead on prisoners of war, covert operations, military training or other related subjects. At times war films focus on daily military or civilian life in wartime without depicting battles...
directed by Phil Karlson
Phil Karlson
Phil Karlson was a film director known for his no-nonsense film noirs. Karlson directed 99 River Street, Kansas City Confidential and Hell's Island all with actor John Payne in the early 1950s...
and starring Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
, Sylva Koscina
Sylva Koscina
Sylva Koscina was an Italian actress.-Biography:...
, and Sergio Fantoni
Sergio Fantoni
Sergio Fantoni, is an Italian actor.He was born in Rome, the son of actor Cesare Fantoni . In films from the late 1940s, he has worked mainly in his own country but made several appearances in American films in the 1960s, most notably opposite Frank Sinatra in the war film Von Ryan's Express,...
.
Plot
In Northern Italy in 1944, the entire population of the village of Reanoto is massacred by the SS for helping the Italian resistance movementItalian resistance movement
The Italian resistance is the umbrella term for the various partisan forces formed by pro-Allied Italians during World War II...
. The only survivors are a group of young boys in ages from 7 to 14 led by Aldo (Mark Colleano, son of Bonar Colleano
Bonar Colleano
Bonar Colleano was an American-born British stage and motion-picture performer.-Early life:Colleano was born Bonar Sullivan in New York City. Following childhood experiences with the Ringling Brothers Circus and in his family's famous circus, he entered films in 1944...
and Susan Shaw
Susan Shaw
Susan Shaw was an English actress.Shaw began her film career in 1946 when she was signed to a contract by the J. Arthur Rank Organisation...
) who witness the mass execution and vow revenge.
That night, a stick
Detachment (military)
A detachment is a military unit. It can either be detached from a larger unit for a specific function or be a permanent unit smaller than a battalion. The term is often used to refer to a unit that is assigned to a different base from the parent unit...
of US Army paratrooper
Paratrooper
Paratroopers are soldiers trained in parachuting and generally operate as part of an airborne force.Paratroopers are used for tactical advantage as they can be inserted into the battlefield from the air, thereby allowing them to be positioned in areas not accessible by land...
saboteur
Saboteur
A saboteur is someone who commits sabotage.It may also refer to:*Morituri , a 1965 film also known as The Saboteur*Saboteur , a card game by Frederic Moyersoen, published in 2004...
s jump into the area with a mission to destroy a strategic dam with the partisan
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
s prior to the Fifth United States Army's advance into the area. Their drop zone
Drop zone
A drop zone is a place where parachutists or parachuted supplies land. It can be an area targeted for landing by paratroopers, or a base from which recreational parachutists and skydivers take off in aircraft and land under parachutes...
has been discovered by the Germans, who kill them all except the leader of the paratroopers, Captain Turner (Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson
Roy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
), who is rendered unconscious and goes unnoticed by the Germans when he lands in the branches of a tree. The Germans capture the demolition equipment from the dead Americans.
Aldo and his friends rescue Turner by spiriting him away from the ambush
Ambush
An ambush is a long-established military tactic, in which the aggressors take advantage of concealment and the element of surprise to attack an unsuspecting enemy from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind hilltops...
. Realising that Turner needs medical attention, they kidnap a German female doctor (a blonde Sylva Koscina
Sylva Koscina
Sylva Koscina was an Italian actress.-Biography:...
) to nurse him to health, and keeping her captive even after Turner's recovery.
In order to avenge the massacre, Aldo wants the American Captain to train him and his friends in the use of military weapons and tactics. Turner uses the opportunity as a second chance to complete his sabotage mission, using the boys instead of his late command. He has the boys steal the captured American demolition
Demolition
Demolition is the tearing-down of buildings and other structures, the opposite of construction. Demolition contrasts with deconstruction, which involves taking a building apart while carefully preserving valuable elements for re-use....
gear from the Germans, but Aldo hides the detonator
Detonator
A detonator is a device used to trigger an explosive device. Detonators can be chemically, mechanically, or electrically initiated, the latter two being the most common....
s until Turner leads them in their revenge.
Turner and his "Dead End Kids
Dead End Kids
The Dead End Kids were a group of young actors from New York who appeared in Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Dead End in 1935. In 1937 producer Samuel Goldwyn brought all of them to Hollywood and turned the play into a film...
" are pursued by Wehrmacht
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
Captain Von Hecht (Sergio Fantoni
Sergio Fantoni
Sergio Fantoni, is an Italian actor.He was born in Rome, the son of actor Cesare Fantoni . In films from the late 1940s, he has worked mainly in his own country but made several appearances in American films in the 1960s, most notably opposite Frank Sinatra in the war film Von Ryan's Express,...
with bleached hair), a professional soldier who is against the methods of the SS, which he considers to be counter-productive.
Cast
- Rock HudsonRock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
as Turner - Sylva KoscinaSylva KoscinaSylva Koscina was an Italian actress.-Biography:...
as Bianca - Sergio FantoniSergio FantoniSergio Fantoni, is an Italian actor.He was born in Rome, the son of actor Cesare Fantoni . In films from the late 1940s, he has worked mainly in his own country but made several appearances in American films in the 1960s, most notably opposite Frank Sinatra in the war film Von Ryan's Express,...
as Von Hecht - Giacomo Rossi-StuartGiacomo Rossi-StuartGiacomo Rossi-Stuart was an Italian film actor often credited as Jack Stuart. He appeared in over 80 films between 1953 and 1989.He was born in Todi, Italy and died in Rome, Italy....
as Schwalberg - Jacques SernasJacques SernasJacques Sernas is a Lithuanian-born French actor with an international film career.-Early life and education:He was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, the son of Jokūbas Šernas, a signatory of the 1918 Act of Independence of Lithuania, who died when Sernas was a year old. His mother took him to Paris,...
as Maj. Taussig - Mark Colleano as Aldo
- Mauro Gravina as Carlo
- John FordyceJohn FordyceJohn Fordyce was a Church of England priest who was ordained in Pembrokeshire, Wales.Fordyce was posted to St Johns, Newfoundland where he appears to have had a fractious relationship with the residents after an initial warm welcome. In 1735 Fordyce asked for a transfer to South Carolina as a...
as Dino - Giuseppe Cassuto as Franco
- Amedeo Castracane as Tonio
- Giancarlo Colombaioni as Romeo
- Ronald Colombaioni as Mikko
- Valerio Colombaioni as Arturo
- Giuseppe Coppola as Rico
- Daniel Dempsey as Giorgio
- Luigi Criscuolo as Paolo
Production
Hudson had previously had success with several military roles, such as Ice Station ZebraIce Station Zebra
Ice Station Zebra is a 1963 thriller novel written by Scottish author Alistair MacLean. This was the last of MacLean's classic sequence of first person narratives which began with Night Without End, and represented a return to that earlier novel's Arctic setting...
. After the failure of the large budgeted Darling Lili
Darling Lili
Darling Lili is a 1970 American musical film. The screenplay was written by William Peter Blatty and Blake Edwards, who also directed. The cast included Julie Andrews, Rock Hudson, and Jeremy Kemp.-Plot:...
, he thought an action war film geared to the youth market directed by the experienced Phil Karlson
Phil Karlson
Phil Karlson was a film director known for his no-nonsense film noirs. Karlson directed 99 River Street, Kansas City Confidential and Hell's Island all with actor John Payne in the early 1950s...
had potential. The female lead was originally to have been played by Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
, but she dropped out at the last moment and was replaced by Koscina. Koscina, who had a childhood in World War II Yugoslavia, felt that the idea of the film of war destroying mentally as well as physically was an interesting one. Her role as a female German doctor captured by partisans was similar to the lead in the acclaimed The Last Bridge
The Last Bridge
The Last Bridge is a 1954 Austrian drama film directed by Helmut Käutner. It was entered into the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.-Cast:* Maria Schell - Dr. Helga Reinbeck* Bernhard Wicki - Boro* Barbara Rütting - Militza* Carl Möhner - Martin Berger...
.
Though set in 1944, the hairstyles, American fatigues
Fatigues
-Clothing:* Nowadays, usually a synonym of battledress.* Formerly, work clothes worn by soldiers to avoid getting their uniforms dirty in non-combat manual work* Camouflage-patterned clothing found in civilian fashions...
and attitudes are from the late 1960s, with Hudson first wearing the moustache he would have throughout the 1970s. Time Magazine called the film "a weird little war movie full of bizarre energy and merciless violence, a kind of 'Dirty Dozen
Dirty Dozen
Dirty Dozen may refer to:Chemistry* The first group of compounds identified as Persistent organic pollutants.Music* Bonkers 12: The Dirty Dozen, a compilation album* Dirty Dozen Brass Band, a New Orleans jazz band* D12, an American hip hop group...
Reach Puberty
Puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...
'". Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone, Grand Officer OMRI, , is an Italian composer and conductor, who wrote music to more than 500 motion pictures and television series, in a career lasting over 50 years. His scores have been included in over 20 award-winning films as well as several symphonic and choral pieces...
's score included a whistling theme that was used in the film by the children themselves.
Michael Avallone
Michael Avallone
Michael Avallone was a prolific American author of mystery and secret agent fiction, as well as many novels based upon various television series and films...
wrote a novelisation of the film as a tie-in
Tie-in
A tie-in is an authorized product based on a media property a company is releasing, such as a movie or video/DVD, computer game, video game, television program/television series, board game, web site, role-playing game or literary property...
. An exploitation
Exploitation
This article discusses the term exploitation in the meaning of using something in an unjust or cruel manner.- As unjust benefit :In political economy, economics, and sociology, exploitation involves a persistent social relationship in which certain persons are being mistreated or unfairly used for...
guide for cinema owners suggested dressing up boys under 15 in army uniforms and putting actual hornet's nests (hopefully without their makers) in shop windows to promote the film.
External links
- original film trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hawGbdscMzI