This week’s pick comes to us from the Italian front, a rigorous and often overlooked campaign of ETO during World War II. Robert Mitchum stars as a war correspondent (Dick Ennis) (loosely based on famed correspondent Ernie Pyle) in the 1968 production of Anzio, produced by the legendary Dino De Laurentiis and directed by both Edward Dmytryk and Duilio Coletti. The film also stars Peter Falk (Cpl. Jack Rabinoff), Earl Holliman (Sgt. Abe Stimmler), Arthur Kennedy (Maj Gen. Jack Lesley), and Wolfgang Preiss (Field Marshal Albert Kesselring)..
Anzio tells the story about Operation Shingle, a bold plan devised by Winston Churchill to drop an Allied force behind the famed Monte Cassino Line in central Italy and to liberate Rome in January 1944. The Italian campaign proved to be a stalemate for the Allies who were making very little headway due to the geographical advantages the Germans and their Italian allies had over the invading forces. The film is a dramatization of the operation and the effects its aftermath had with the Allies who underestimated the enemy’s strength and exact location.
Dick Ennis (Mitchum) is a war correspondent who has seen too much war and is tired of its effects on humanity. Ennis joins the American expeditionary force assigned for the invasion. During a press conference with Generals Lesley (Kennedy) and General Carson, (based on Gen. Mark Clark) (Robert Ryan), Ennis shouts out the destination of where they’re heading. An angered Gen. Carson asks Ennis where he comes by his information. Ennis simply replies “from the streets of Napoli general.”
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