Anzio
Anzio (Italian: Lo sbarco di Anzio), also known as The Battle for Anzio (UK title), is a 1968 Technicolor war film in Panavision, an Italian and American co-production, about Operation Shingle, the 1944 Allied seaborne assault on the Italian port of Anzio in World War II. It was adapted from the book Anzio by Wynford Vaughan-Thomas, who had been the BBC war correspondent at the battle.
Plot
During a shipboard meeting with American General Jack Lesley, commander of the Allied forces set to land at Anzio, war correspondent Dick Ennis (a thinly disguised Ernie Pyle) tells Lesley (who has admired Ennis' combat reporting for years) that his journalistic efforts at the front lines has been motivated by his life long quest to discover why men go to war. He confesses he has yet to find an answer but he rejects Lesley's explanation that it is all a matter of survival. Ennis is assigned to accompany US Army Rangers for the upcoming attempt to outflank the tough enemy defenses. The amphibious landing is unopposed, but General Lesley, is too cautious, preferring to fortify his beachhead before advancing inland. Previously, Lesley and General Carson (a thinly disguised US Army General Mark Clark) agreed at an impromptu press conference in Naples that there would be no repeat of the near-fatal landing at Salerno the previous year when the Allied commanders grossly underestimated the German opposition. Ennis and a Ranger drive in a jeep through the countryside, discovering there are few Germans between the beachhead and Rome, but his information is ignored. As a result, the German commander, Field Marshall Kesselring, had time to gather his forces and launch an effective counterattack.
Cast
- Anthony Steel
- Arthur Franz
- Arthur Kennedy
- Carmen Scarpitta
- Dante Maggio
- Earl Holliman
- Gene Evans
- Giancarlo Giannini
- Joseph Walsh
- Mark Damon
- Patrick Magee
- Peter Falk
- Reni Santoni
- Richard Arlen
- Robert Mitchum
- Robert Ryan
- Thomas Hunter
- Tiberio Mitri
- Tonio Selwart
- Venantino Venantini
- Wayde Preston
- Wolfgang Preiss
More details
author | Frank De Felitta H.A.L. Craig |
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contentLocation | Italy |
director | Duilio Coletti Edward Dmytryk |
editor | Peter Taylor |
events | Battle of Anzio World War II |
keywords | adrenaline rush ambush amphibious landing army general battle of cisterna beachhead bore break out caesar c line defense line discover ernie pyle first special service force follow forced to kill general mark clark human being jeep kill land meet nothing press conference report search their way underestimated us army rangers war correspondent war reporter wild cat winston churchill |
musicBy | Riz Ortolani |
producer | Dino De Laurentiis |
productionCompany | Dino de Laurentiis Cinematografica |
publisher | Columbia Pictures |
theme | epic war |