User Reviews

The movie is based on Alexander Ramati's book called The Assisi Underground. Ramati learned of what happened when he was in Assisi after the liberation in 1944 and promised to chronicle the story of how a simple Franciscan priest and a local bishop concealed Jews during the German occupation.

The movie takes liberties with the story and adds elements (such as looking for a Italian Jewish scientist who knew Enrico Fermi) that were not there. Some action sequences did happen in the book (the train scene where British planes bomb the area) while some were altered. Colonel Muller and the SS Captain reflect their characters for the most part. It does relate correctly though the bravery of everyone working together to help save the Jews. But if you want the full story, read the book as it will give a lot more details than depicted in the movie.

The story of Italian priests hiding Jews in the Chapel of St. Francis and Cloister of St. Clare should have been given better treatment than this poorly done film. Slashed by almost an hour from its original release, Padre Rufino (Ben Cross) is asked by Bishop Nicolini (James Mason) to hide some Jews in the monastery and cloister at Assisi. He does, while making friends with thoughtful Nazi Colonel Muller (Maximilian Schell), the town commandant. Jews are almost discovered, the war ends, everyone gets a little mention about what happened to them at the end of the film.

The film's pace here is dull, it is nothing more than Nazi extras asking for identification papers and Cross looking like the cat that ate the canary. I half expected him to wink at the camera every time a Nazi goosestepped into frame. Cross also often forgets his Italian accent. Mason's idea of an Italian accent is to add an "uh" syllable at the end of every word, such as "We-uh must-uh help-uh the-uh Jews-uh." Most of his speeches are completely devoid of comprehension, I thought I was listening to pig latin. The Jews here are not portrayed as victims, it's more like they have been inconvenienced by World War II. They do not come across as stoic and bold, but spoiled and complaining. In one embarrassing scene, Rufino, loved by all Jews who meet him, does a magic trick, compliments a painting, and comforts Jews like he is the activities director at an adult day care facility. Schell comes off best as the Nazi officer torn between his obligation to the Third Reich and his upbringing as a Catholic. Not enough of his inner turmoil was explored. The film also features a horrendous soundtrack that sounds like bits and pieces of other war films just thrown into the sound mix. There are a couple of battle scenes, one with obvious stock footage, but this is not good. "The Assisi Underground" was made by the guys at the old Cannon Group studio, and that was the first error if you are familiar with their product.

During World War II, Alexander Ramati worked as a war journalist, entering Assisi with the Allied forces where he met Father Rufino Niccacci, whose Franciscan Monastery of San Damiano in Assisi worked to give Jewis people during World War II new identities and hid them from the Germans, which is much different than how so much of the Catholic Church dealt with that side of World War II.

After interviewing Niccacci, he would write the book that this is based on, as well as direct the movie. Not many authors have directed their own books, but thanks to this Letterboxd list, you can count Ramati in the same league as Fernando Arrabal (Long Live Death, Car Cemetery), Clive Barker (Hellraiser, Nightbreed, Lord of Illusions), Enki Bilal (Immortal), William Peter Blatty (The Exorcist III, The Ninth Configuration), Bertrand Blier (Going Places), Catherine Breillat (A Real Young Girl, Night After Night, Anatomy of Hell, 36 Fillette, Abuse of Weakness), Emmanuel Carrère (The Mustache), Medgi Charef (Tea In the Harem), Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Jean Cocteau (The Eagle with Two Heads, The Storm Within), Michael Crichton (Pursuit, First Great Train Robbery), Ramón de España (Haz conmigo lo que quieras), Margeuerite Duras (Agatha and the Limitless Reading; Baxter, Ver Baxter; The Children; Destroy, She Said; Endless Days In the Trees; India Song; Jaune, Le Soleil; La Musica), Brad Fraser (Leaving Metropolis), Buddy Giovinazzo (Life Is Hot In Cracktown), Sacha Guitry (The Story of a Cheat), Peter Handke (The Absence, The Left-Handed Woman), Václav Havel (Odcházení), Ethan Hawke (The Hottest State), Michel Houellebecq (Possibility of an Island), Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Dance of Reality, Endless Poetry), Junji Ito (Tomio), Elia Kazan (America America, The Arrangement), Stephen King (Maximum Overdrive), Neil LaBute (In the Company of Men, The Shape of Things), Robert Lepage (Nô), André Malraux (Days of Hope), David Mamet (Oileanna), Thomas McGuane (92 In the Shade), Gian Carlo Menotti (The Medium), Oscar Micheaux (The Homesteader), Frank Miller (Sin City, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For), Rebecca Miller (Personal Velocity, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee), Yukio Mishima (Patriotism), John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch), Hayao Miyazaki (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, The Wind Rises), Dito Montiel (A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints), Laura Mulvey (Riddles of the Sphinx), Ryu Murakami (Almost Transparent Blue; It's Aigt, My Friend, Raffles Hotel, Tokyo Decadence, Dance With Me), Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira), Marcel Pagnol (Topaze), Gordon Parks (The Learning Tree), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Accattone), Lucía Puenzo (The Fish Child, The German Doctor), Atiq Rahimi (Earth and Ashes, The Patience Stone), Jean Rollin (Two Orphan Vampires), Ousmane Sembène (Mandabi, Xala), John Patrick Shanley (Doubt, Wild Mountain Thyme), Vasily Shukshin (There Is Such a Lad), Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead), Preston Sturges (Christmas In July), Abdellah Taïa (Salvation Army), Adriana Trigiani (Big Stone Gap), Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun), Petr Zelenka (Wrong Side Up), Florian Zeller (The Father) and for Cannon lovers, Norman Mailer's Tough Guys Don't Dance.

Ben Cross is Rufino Niccacci, James Mason is Giuseppe Placido Nicolini and Maximilian Schell plays Colonel Valentin Müller, while Edmund Purdom probably is in the classiest movie of his late career as Cardinal Della Costa. Yet somehow, even with an hour cut from the movie, it still moves quite slow.

Yet as I must watch every Cannon movie, I watched it. There's an idea for a good movie here. This isn't it, sadly. And it was released a year after Mason died, which just makes me sad.

"The Assisi Underground" is a war movie that fits in the class of non- combatant heroes. It is a moving, uplifting story of life. It is about a humble priest who organized an effort to save Jews during World War II. It is a story about the efforts of courageous local church leaders to build an underground network. It is a story about a whole town's willingness to help protect and save the lives of strangers. And it is a story about one German officer, who showed not all German soldiers to be inhumane monsters.

Everything about this film is excellent. The script, direction, cinematography, and setting are tops. The setting seems natural and calm at times. When German soldiers and the Gestapo come on the scene, the fear, tension and worry are heightened. It's almost as if one were sitting or standing in the midst of the story. The scenes around Assisi and the countryside show the beauty of the place. The cast is outstanding. Ben Cross ("Chariots of Fire") is great as the amiable Padre Rufino. James Mason ("A Star is Born") is perfect as the concerned and earnest Bishop Nicolini. Irene Papas ("The Guns of Navarone," "Zorba the Greek") rules as the firm but caring Mother Giuseppina who hides Jews in her convent. Maximilian Schell ("Judgment at Nuremberg," "Cross of Iron," "The Odessa File") is a Catholic doctor and Colonel who commands a German medical unit. He shows the humanity and care for people, art and faith that few in the German military show.

"The word 'heartwarming' was coined for books exactly like this." So reads the 1978 Kirkus Review for the book, "The Assisi Underground," by Alexander Ramati. The same must be said about this 1985 movie based on the book. Ramati also wrote the screenplay and directed the film on-site in Italy.

Ramati's interest in all aspects of bringing this true-life event to the public is another story in itself. He was a Jewish refugee from Poland who had made it to England to serve with the Allies. On June 17, 1944, he was among a group of war correspondents that entered Assisi with the Allies. When he learned of what had taken place there the previous year – after Italians overthrew Mussolini and Italy joined the Allies, he decided to return and write a book about it in the future. It took him 30 years to do so, and fortunately, most of the main characters were still alive to be interviewed. The most important of those was Franciscan Padre Rufino Niccacci.

The story of the Assisi underground revolves around Father Rufino. His superior, Bishop Nicolini, tabbed him to organize the underground. It became one of the most successful large-scale Jewish rescue operations during WW II. Years after the war, the padre, the bishop and one other Assisi underground leader, Don Aldo Brunacci, all received gold medals from the government of Israel and were declared Righteous Gentiles.

Be sure to watch the credits at the end of the film. A segment shows the characters and what happened to them after the war. It tells also about the highly successful efforts throughout Italy in saving Italian Jews. More than 32,000 Jews were hid and helped to escape in Italy. Only Denmark could come close to matching the 80 percent save rate of a nation's Jewish population during WWII. This is a great film to add to any library.