Cinema: Prosciutto and Melancholy

"It is a sad house where the cock is silent and the hen makes all the noise." So clucks a resident of Santa Vittoria, summarizing the marriage of the Bombolinis, Italo (Anthony Quinn) and Rosa (Anna Magnani).

But then, the whole wine-rich village is melancholy—until it learns that the Germans are coming to take over the town and its only treasure, vino. Bombolini, the town drunk, is hastily proclaimed mayor. His single responsibility: to hide a million bottles of vermouth. His metamorphosis from clown to hero —and what he does with the wine—provides The Secret of Santa Vittoria.

In the recent past, Producer-Director Stanley Kramer has been notorious for the fustian message movie (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; Ship of Fools). But in his adaptation of Robert Crichton's bestseller he has wisely opted for entertainment. As the boozy, scapegrace official, Quinn delivers a prosciutto performance—but that is exactly what the part requires. Strutting on the cobblestones, cowering before Rosa, exchanging peasantries with the Germans, he becomes a figure of comic-operatic stature. If Quinn is Italo, Magnani is Italy. The ancient sorrow and strength of the nation are inscribed on a face that was not born but achieved.

To steal a scene from either Bombolini would amount to grand larceny, and the supporting players are all petty. Virna Lisi, as an icy aristocrat, is confined to reaction shots opposite her two admirers: Hardy Kruger, a profile of German authority, and Sergio Franchi, a profile, period. The show's force does not reassert itself until the appearance of the extras, a cluster of paesani recruited from an Italian village 36 miles south of Rome. They provide a chorus con brio, and give the film verisimilitude no casting office could provide. "The Italian race," wrote Mussolini, "is a race of sheep." By going to the source. The Secret of Santa Vittoria shows why he lost that race—and why Italy, host to invaders and tyrants for 2,000 years, has managed to endure and to survive them all.