''Anzio'' (Italian: ''Lo sbarco di Anzio''), also known as ''The Battle for Anzio'' (UK title), is a 1968

Technicolor Technicolor is a series of Color motion picture film, color motion picture processes, the first version dating back to 1916, and followed by improved versions over several decades. Definitive Technicolor movies using three black and white films ...

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about naval, air, or land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle scenes means that war fi ...

Panavision Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company founded in 1953 specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during ...

, an Italian and American co-production, about

Operation Shingle The Battle of Anzio was a battle of the Italian Campaign of World War II that took place from January 22, 1944 (beginning with the Allied amphibious landing known as Operation Shingle) to June 5, 1944 (ending with the capture of Rome). The ope ...

, the 1944 Allied seaborne assault on the Italian port of

Anzio Anzio (, also , ) is a town and ''comune'' on the coast of the Lazio region of Italy, about south of Rome. Well known for its seaside harbour setting, it is a Port, fishing port and a departure point for ferries and hydroplanes to the Pontine I ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was adapted from the book ''Anzio'' by

Wynford Vaughan-Thomas Lewis John Wynford Vaughan-Thomas (Given name#Name at birth, né Thomas) (15 August 1908 – 4 February 1987) was a Welsh newspaper journalist and radio and television broadcaster. In later life he took the name Vaughan-Thomas after his fath ...

, who had been the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

war correspondent at the battle. The film stars

Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for ''The Story of G.I. Joe'' (1945), followed by his starring in ...

Peter Falk Peter Michael Falk (September 16, 1927 – June 23, 2011) was an American film and television actor. He is best known for his role as Lieutenant Columbo in the long-running television series ''Columbo'' (1968–1978, 1989–2003), for which he ...

, and a variety of international film stars, who mostly portray fictitious characters based on actual participants in the battle. The two exceptions were

Wolfgang Preiss Wolfgang Preiss (27 February 1910 – 27 November 2002) was a German theatre, film and television actor. The son of a teacher, Preiss studied philosophy, German, and drama in the early 1930s. He also took private acting classes with Hans Schlen ...

and

Tonio Selwart Antonio Franz Theus "Tonio" Selmair-Selwart (June 9, 1896 – November 2, 2002) was a German actor and stage performer. Biography Selwart was born in Wartenberg, Bavaria, Germany, and raised in Munich. After studying medicine like his fathe ...

, who respectively played

Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...

Albert Kesselring Albert Kesselring (30 November 1885 – 16 July 1960) was a German '' Generalfeldmarschall'' of the Luftwaffe during World War II who was subsequently convicted of war crimes. In a military career that spanned both world wars, Kesselring beca ...

and General

Eberhard von Mackensen Friedrich August Eberhard von Mackensen (24 September 1889 – 19 May 1969) was a German general and war criminal during World War II who served as commander of the 1st Panzer Army and the 14th Army. Following the war, Mackensen stood trial for ...

. The film was made in Italy with an Italian film crew and produced by Italian producer

Dino De Laurentiis Agostino "Dino" De Laurentiis (; 8 August 1919 – 10 November 2010) was an Italian-American film producer. Along with Carlo Ponti, he was one of the producers who brought Italian cinema to the international scene at the end of World War II. He ...

; however, none of the main cast were Italian, nor were there any major Italian characters. The film was jointly directed by

Edward Dmytryk Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was an American film director. He was known for his 1940s films noir, noir films and received an Academy Award for Best Director, Oscar nomination for Best Director for ''Crossfire (film), Cros ...

and

Duilio Coletti Duilio Coletti (28 December 1906 – 22 May 1999) was an Italian film director and screenwriter. He directed 29 films between 1934 and 1977. Career Born in Penne, Abruzzo, he took a degree in medicine and surgery and practiced the profession ...

. In the English-language version, Italians speak their native language. German military commanders speak English.

Plot

After meeting a general, war correspondent Dick Ennis is assigned to accompany

US Army Rangers United States Army Rangers, according to the US Army's definition, are personnel, past or present, in any unit that has the official designation "Ranger". The term is commonly used to include graduates of the US Army Ranger School, even if t ...

for the upcoming attempt to outflank the tough enemy defenses. The

amphibious landing Amphibious warfare is a type of offensive military operation that today uses naval ships to project ground and air power onto a hostile or potentially hostile shore at a designated landing beach. Through history the operations were conducted ...

is unopposed, but the bumbling American general, Jack Lesley, is too cautious, preferring to fortify his

beachhead A beachhead is a temporary line created when a military unit reaches a landing beach by sea and begins to defend the area as other reinforcements arrive. Once a large enough unit is assembled, the invading force can begin advancing inland. The ...

before advancing inland. Ennis and a Ranger drive in a

jeep Jeep is an American automobile marque, now owned by multi-national corporation Stellantis. Jeep has been part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner American Moto ...

through the countryside, discovering there are few Germans between the beachhead and Rome, but his information is ignored. As a result, the German commander, Kesselring, has time to gather his forces and launch an effective counterattack. Ennis is with the Rangers who are ambushed at the

Battle of Cisterna The Battle of Cisterna took place during World War II, on 30 January–2 February 1944, near Cisterna, Italy, as part of the Battle of Anzio, part of the Italian Campaign. The battle was a clear German victory which also had repercussions on th ...

. From there, the film departs from being a view of all sides and levels of the campaign to a story of a handful of survivors making their way back through enemy lines. The men take shelter in a house occupied by three Italian women. A German patrol arrives at the house, only to be slaughtered by the Americans. Ennis asks what makes one human being willingly kill another. Corporal Jack Rabinoff replies that he loves it, and his lifestyle makes him live more than anyone else. Having almost reached friendly lines, most of the men, including Rabinoff, are killed in a shootout with a group of German snipers. It is during this shootout that Ennis is finally forced to kill one of the Germans with Rabinoff's gun. Only Ennis, Technical Sergeant Stimmler and Private Movie make it back and deliver intelligence about the Germans' new

defense line A defense line or fortification line is a geographically-recognizable line of troops and armament, fortified and set up to protect a high-value location or defend territory. A defense line may be based on natural difficult terrain features, s ...

. The film ends with Ennis publicly questioning the competence of the Allied commanders and man's willingness to kill each other.

Cast

as Dick Ennis, war correspondent *

as Corporal Jack Rabinoff *

Robert Ryan Robert Bushnell Ryan (November 11, 1909 – July 11, 1973) was an American actor and activist. Known for his portrayals of hardened cops and ruthless villains, Ryan performed for over three decades. He was nominated for the Academy Award for ...

as Lieutenant General Carson *

Earl Holliman Henry Earl Holliman (born September 11, 1928) is an American actor, animal-rights activist, and singer known for his many character roles in films, mostly Westerns and dramas, in the 1950s and 1960s. He won a Golden Globe Award for the film '' ...

as Technical Sergeant Abe Stimmler *

Mark Damon Mark Damon (born April 22, 1933) is an American film actor and Film producer, producer. He became noted for roles in films like Roger Corman's House of Usher (film), ''House of Usher'', before moving to Italy and becoming a notable Western (gen ...

as Private Wally Richardson *

Arthur Kennedy John Arthur Kennedy (February 17, 1914January 5, 1990) was an American stage and film actor known for his versatility in supporting film roles and his ability to create "an exceptional honesty and naturalness on stage", especially in the origi ...

as Major General Jack Lesley *

Generalfeldmarschall ''Generalfeldmarschall'' (from Old High German ''marahscalc'', "marshal, stable master, groom"; en, general field marshal, field marshal general, or field marshal; ; often abbreviated to ''Feldmarschall'') was a rank in the armies of several ...

Reni Santoni Reni may refer to: Places * Reni, Alwar, Alwar district, Rajasthan, India * Reni, Chamoli (also ''Raini''), Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, India, devastated by the 2021 Uttarakhand flood * Reni, Churu, Churu district, Rajasthan, India * Reni, U ...

as Private Movie * Joseph Walsh as Private Doyle * Thomas Hunter as Private Andy *

Giancarlo Giannini Giancarlo Giannini (born 1 August 1942) is an Italian actor and voice actor. He won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor for his performance in ''Love and Anarchy'' (1973) and received an Academy Award nomination for ''Seven Beauties' ...

as Private Cellini *

Wayde Preston Wayde Preston (born William Erksine Strange; September 10, 1929 – February 6, 1992) was an American actor cast from 1957 to 1960 in the lead role in 67 episodes of the American Broadcasting Company, ABC/Warner Bros. Western (genre), Western ...

as Colonel Hendricks *

Arthur Franz Arthur Sofield Franz (February 29, 1920 – June 17, 2006) was an American actor whose most notable feature film role was as Lieutenant, Junior Grade, H. Paynter Jr. in ''The Caine Mutiny (film), The Caine Mutiny'' (1954). Early life Franz ...

as Major General Luke Howard * Anthony Steel as Major-General Marsh * Patrick Magee as Major-General Starkey *

Venantino Venantini Venantino Venantini (17 April 1930 – 9 October 2018) was an Italian film actor.The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' film review was generally dismissive, and describes the film as "a very ordinary war movie with an epic title, produced by

, the Italian producer... who thinks big but often produces small". In contrast, ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' critic

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

had a more favourable opinion of the film, described it as "a good war movie and even an intelligent one".

Production

Riz Ortolani Riziero Ortolani (; 25 March 192623 January 2014) was an Italian composer, conductor, and orchestrator, predominantly of film scores. He scored over 200 films and television programs between 1955 and 2014, with a career spanning over fifty year ...

scored the film with a ballad called ''The World is Yours'' with lyrics by

Doc Pomus Jerome Solon Felder (June 27, 1925 – March 14, 1991), known professionally as Doc Pomus, was an American blues singer and songwriter. He is best known as the co-writer of many rock and roll hits. Pomus was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall ...

that was sung beneath the credits by

Jack Jones Jack Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music *Jack Jones (American singer) (born 1938), American jazz and pop singer *Jack Jones, stage name of Australian singer Irwin Thomas (born 1971) *Jack Jones (Welsh musician) (born 1992), Welsh mu ...

Luigi Scaccianoce Luigi Scaccianoce (July 12, 1914, in Venice, Italy – October 18, 1981) was an Italian production designer, art director and set decorator. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for his work in '' The Gospel According t ...

was the

production designer In film and television, the production designer is the individual responsible for the overall aesthetic of the story. The production design gives the viewers a sense of the time period, the plot location, and character actions and feelings. Wo ...

. Peter Falk thought that the script he read was clichéd and wanted off the film. At the last minute, Dino De Laurentiis put Falk's name above the title billing and gave him his choice of writer for his character's dialogue. Falk stayed and wrote his lines himself. The production saw De Laurentiis bring in for the first time another actor who made a debut,

, who would later do international films and would work with director

Lina Wertmüller Arcangela Felice Assunta Wertmüller von Elgg Spanol von Braueich (14 August 1928 – 9 December 2021), known as Lina Wertmüller (), was an Italian film director and screenwriter. She is best known for her 1970s art film, art house films ''Sev ...

. Rabinoff is based on a real

1st Special Service Force The 1st Special Service Force was an elite American–Canadian commando unit in World War II, under the command of the United States Fifth Army. The unit was organized in 1942 and trained at Fort William Henry Harrison near Helena, Montana i ...

soldier, Sgt John L. "Jake" Walkmeister, who ran an illegal brothel of Italian prostitutes in a stolen ambulance. Walkmeister was killed by shrapnel at Port Cros during

Operation Dragoon Operation Dragoon (initially Operation Anvil) was the code name for the landing operation of the Allied invasion of Provence (Southern France) on 15August 1944. Despite initially designed to be executed in conjunction with Operation Overlord, th ...

, the invasion of southern France..

References

External links

* * * * * * . * . {{DEFAULTSORT:Anzio (Film) 1968 films 1968 war films 1960s English-language films English-language Italian films American war films Italian Campaign of World War II films Italian war films Films directed by Edward Dmytryk Films directed by Duilio Coletti Columbia Pictures films Films based on non-fiction books War epic films World War II films based on actual events Films set in 1944 Macaroni Combat films Films scored by Riz Ortolani Films produced by Dino De Laurentiis American World War II films Italian World War II films Anzio 1960s American films 1960s Italian films

Plot

Cast

Production

See also

References

External links