Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.5

The Secret of Santa Vittoria Blu-ray Movie Review

Zorba the Italian?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 14, 2014

Though he didn’t know it at the time, Stanley Kramer was coming to the end of his long and august directing (and producing) career when he made The Secret of Santa Vittoria in 1969. As a director, Kramer had become known (and some might even say “typecast”) for his “message pictures” like On the Beach, Inherit the Wind, Judgment at Nuremberg, and what was at the time of The Secret of Santa Vittoria’s release Kramer’s most recent mainstream success, 1967’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Kramer had proven his comedy bona fides with the epic 1963 outing It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, a film supposedly made at least partially on a bet from critic Bosley Crowther who told Kramer he didn’t have the temperament to make a funny film (this despite the fact that Kramer had produced a film that was supposed to have been a laugh riot, 1948’s So This Is New York). While The Secret of Santa Vittoria didn’t really traffic in the hyperbolic hysteria that made Kramer’s 1963 all star opus such an iconic film, it had its own perhaps somewhat gentler comedic ambience as well as the benefit of having been based on what was then still a best selling novel by Robert Crichton. With a cast headlined by Oscar winners Anthony Quinn and Anna Magnani, Kramer looked to be helming yet another blockbuster, but in one of those curious, seemingly intangible, changes in the cultural zeitgeist, The Secret of Santa Vittoria had the misfortune of being released in the wake of Easy Rider (contrary to the excellent commentary on It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the releases were not more or less simultaneous, and Easy Rider had been out for a couple of months before Kramer’s film debuted). Suddenly big budget blockbusters with older casts were yesterday’s news, and The Secret of Santa Vittoria died a quick death at the box office. Kramer managed to eke out a few more films over the course of the next few years, but perhaps ironically the erstwhile provocateur suddenly found himself in the role of an elderly curmudgeon, the filmic equivalent of an old man screaming at kids about what things were like back in the day.

Anthony Quinn made something of a career out of playing larger than life characters, whether those were his Oscar winning turns as Eufemio Zapata in Viva Zapata! and Paul Gaugin in Lust for Life, or his Oscar nominated performance in the title role of Zorba the Greek. Quinn is in familiar outsized territory with his buffoonish Italo Bombolini, a hard drinking scoundrel whose passions often overcome his intellect. Bombolini is one of the residents of the picturesque village of Santa Vittoria, the sort of lazy place where the townsfolk just stare laconically when it’s announced breathlessly that Il Duce himself, Benito Mussolini, has been run out of power and the Fascist tide that had swept Italy was itself being swept away.

Bombolini seems to be one of the few to really grasp the meaning of Mussolini’s ouster—it means that the pro-dictator message Bombolini left on the town’s immense water tower needs to be erased. In a sign of Bombolini’s best intentions sometimes overpowering his reason, he climbs the lofty edifice to paint over the scrawl, only to remember he’s deathly afraid of heights. During a rescue manned by Fabio (Giancarlo Giannini), Fabio whips the crowd up into a pro-Bombolini fervor in order to give the old man some courage, a gambit that weirdly ends with Bombolini being appointed mayor of Santa Vittoria as the dust settles and former pro-Fascist politicos seek to not face the firing squad, while also preferring that a puppet of sorts take over the mayor's job.

But of course Bombolini turns out to be nobody’s lapdog, and when the removal of Il Duce creates a vacuum that the Nazis are only too happy to fill, suddenly Santa Vittoria, a town typically comprised of combatants arguing like petulant children, has to work together to hide the (literal) fruits of their one and only industry, winemaking, from the approaching German horde. That horde is led by a patrician blond Aryan named Sepp Von Prum (Hardy Kruger), and he is as intent on uncovering a huge (as in millions of bottles) of wine as Bombolini and the rest of the townspeople are in hiding it.

Stanley Kramer was known for his progressive sociopolitical stances, many of which made it to his films virtually unscathed, but also for his directorial economy. Sadly, the first of these is somewhat hidden (though still apparent) in The Secret of Santa Vittoria, while the second has all but disappeared. Contrast the opening of, say, On the Beach with this film. Now of course these are resolutely different properties with different stories to tell and wholly different ambiences to support, but Kramer manages to let the audience know within just the first few minutes of his apocalyptic drama that there’s been a nuclear war and that the crew of the submarine where the film’s first scenes are set may be among a mere handful of human survivors. This is done almost tangentially as mostly mundane plot points play out. The Secret of Santa Vittoria by comparison often feels overstuffed, filled to the brim with admittedly colorful characters but lacking a sense of urgency or momentum (maybe that famous Santa Vittorian laissez faire attitude spilled over onto Kramer himself).

The film is certainly one of Kramer’s most scenic, and it features an absolutely stunning cast which includes of course Quinn, Anna Magnani as Bombolini’s harridan wife Rosa, and, in two rather interesting pieces of casting, Virna Lisi as the town’s resident aristocrat and RCA’s international singing sensation Sergio Franchi as Tufa, a wounded soldier who comes under Caterina’s care. It’s here that Kramer’s proletariat sensibilities come most into play, as the working class soldier comes up with the plan to hide the wine, and his patrician caregiver finds herself drawn into the exploits with unexpected enthusiasm.

Still, there’s a kind of musty feeling about much of this film. Another famous 1969 bomb, Bob Fosse’s film of his hit Broadway musical Sweet Charity, advertised itself (a bit hopefully and more than a bit prematurely) as “the musical motion picture of the 70s!” The Secret of Santa Vittoria’s tagline probably would have more accurately placed it in the 1950s, as an enjoyable but trifling exercise in robust ethnic characters teaching those nasty Nazis what everyday people can accomplish when they work together.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Secret of Santa Vittoria is presented on Blu-ray with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Kramer shot this film on location in Italy (including at the famed Cinecitta Studios), and the scenes of the bustling little village square and the surrounding countryside are one of the film's chief allures. (Kramer's DP was famed Italian cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, who knew his way around picturesque Italian villages courtesy of such iconic films as Amarcord.) The increased resolution of the Blu-ray is instantly apparent during the opening credits sequence, which plays out under what almost looks like a burlap scrim, so that the imagery appears to be almost "woven". For the first time in this film's home video history, the close knit patterns are clear and stable and finally offer the appropriate amount of depth to the image. Colors here are generally very nicely saturated and accurate looking, though there are some minute fluctuations in color temperature throughout the presentation. Contrast is strong, navigating both the sun dappled outdoor scenes and some of the shrouded interiors with ease. Grain is naturally rendered and there are no signs of aggressive digital sharpening or other tweaking of the image.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Secret of Santa Vittoria's original mono sound mix is presented here in DTS-HD Master Audio. This sometimes boisterously noisy film sounds great here, if narrow, with dialogue presented very clearly (albeit at times with rather heavy accents) and Ernest Gold's very colorful score is full bodied and clear sounding. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is surprisingly wide for this type of film.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Original Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:32)


• MGM 90th Anniversary Trailer (1080p; 2:06)


• Isolated Score Track offers Ernest Gold's Oscar nominated music in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0.

The Secret of Santa Vittoria Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Secret of Santa Vittoria is, kind of like the town it portrays, ungainly and a little chaotic. But much like the townspeople it portrays, the film also has a surplus of heart, and that aspect carries it through some of the lethargic elements. Buoyed by an absolutely first rate cast at the top of their respective games, this may not be prime Kramer, but it's still hugely enjoyable if taken on its own terms. Technical merits here are excellent, and The Secret of Santa Vittoria comes Recommended.