Based on Robert Crichton's novel of the same name, the film was shot on location in Italy, and the actual town of Santa Vittoria was first scouted for shooting. Instead of the scenic little village with quaint piazzas and fountains and cobblestone streets that Kramer had in mind, Santa Vittoria was now much more modern than the town depicted in the book. One hundred sixty-nine towns later, the perfect location was found: Anticoli Corrado. Kramer's team quickly worked out deals with the townspeople, whereupon some would remain as residents, others would actually work on the film, and still others took paid vacations on Kramer's budget in exchange for use of their homes during the four-month shoot. Kramer decreed, "Architecturally, the contours and dimensions of the square and the adjoining streets, made me settle on this town. The art department added a bell tower, one single façade, and a water tower for one particularly funny (and it turned out, dangerous) scene."
The scene in question is when the main character, Italo Bombolini (Quinn) is drunkenly attempting to descend from the water tower, assisted by his daughter's boyfriend. Although the most dangerous parts of the action were filmed on the ground, a few key shots had to be filmed on a platform several hundred feet high in which Quinn is pretending to resist the boyfriend's help-a couple of near-misses made for some nerve-racking moments! Quinn may have escaped injury then, but dealing with his costar Anna Magnani was another matter. Explained Kramer, "He and Magnani didn't get along at all. It's a wonder their scenes ever got finished. She didn't like him one bit, and in their big fight scene, when she was supposed to literally kick him out of the house, she did it so hard during the shooting that she broke her foot!" The passionate Magnini, who rose to acclaim with Roberto Rossellini's Roma, citta aperta (1945) intrigued Kramer from their first meeting, where he offered her the part in Vittoria.
He recalled, "She was a perfect lady. She greeted me in a formal gown, used a cigarette holder and spoke perfect English. She told me all about the studio there, where we would be doing some important interior sequences, and she described the business and artistic aspects of moviemaking in Rome with a great deal of insight and intelligence and class. I thought wow, what a lady she is! And then she gave me a warning: 'Don't eat at the commissary here-the food is sh*t.' It was then I knew she had another side to her."
Bad food and broken foot aside, the on-location shoot in Anticoli Corrado provided a poignant lesson in cross-cultural goodwill. When the production crew received word of Robert Kennedy's assassination, Kramer soon received a letter from the Italian union group working on the film, in which they decided that "the best way to honor the memory of a man of action is by action," and would be working an extra hour the next day in memory of the fallen politician. A touched Kramer replied the next morning in a town-wide announcement, "The decision of the Italian crew of The Secret of Santa Vittoria to dedicate one extra hour of work to the memory of Robert Kennedy has no parallel in motion-picture history. The American group in Anticoli Corrado is deeply honored to know you and privileged to be your coworkers." The good works didn't end there: all 500 villagers that appeared in the film donated a large part of their wages earned to pay for the restoration of Renaissance frescos in the Romanesque church of San Pietro, a national monument in Anticoli Corrado. Viewers may ask, what's the secret of Anticoli Corrado?
Producer: Stanley Kramer, George Glass
Director: Stanley Kramer
Screenplay: Robert Crichton, Ben Maddow, William Rose
Cinematography: Giuseppe Rotunno
Film Editing: Earle Herdan, William A. Lyon
Art Direction: Robert Clatworthy
Music: Ernest Gold
Cast: Anthony Quinn (Italo Bombolini), Anna Magnani (Rosa), Virna Lisi (Caterina Malatesta), Hardy Krüger (Capt. von Prum), Sergio Franchi (Tufa), Renato Rascel (Babbaluche).
C-139m. Letterboxed.
by Eleanor Quin
