Hornets' Nest
Tags: revenge, murder, violence

Plot synopsis:
In Northern Italy in 1944, the entire population of the village of Reanoto is massacred by the SS under the command of the cruel Sturmbannführer Taussig (Jacques Sernas) for helping the Italian resistance movement. The only survivors are a group of young boys in ages from 7 to 14 led by Aldo (Mark Colleano, son of Bonar Colleano and Susan Shaw) who witness the mass execution and vow revenge.
That night, a detachment of US Army paratrooper saboteurs jump into the area with a mission to destroy a strategic dam with the partisans prior to the Fifth United States Army's advance into the area. Their drop zone has been discovered by Wehrmacht troops under the command of Hauptmann Friedrich von Hecht (Sergio Fantoni), who kill them all except the leader of the paratroopers, Captain Turner (Rock Hudson), who is rendered unconscious and goes unnoticed by the Germans when he lands in the branches of a tree. The Germans capture the demolition equipment from the dead Americans.
Aldo and his friends rescue Turner by spiriting him away from the ambush. Realising that Turner needs medical attention, they kidnap German doctor Bianca Freedling (Sylva Koscina) to nurse him to health, and keeping her captive even after Turner's recovery. In order to avenge the massacre of Reanoto, Aldo wants Turner to train him and his friends in the use of military weapons and tactics. Turner uses the opportunity as a second chance to complete his sabotage mission, using the boys instead of his late command. He has the boys steal the captured American demolition gear from von Hecht's headquarters, killing SS Rottenführer Gunther in the process, but Aldo hides the detonators until Turner leads them in their revenge. He trains them to use German MP40 guns.
In response to the killing of Gunther, Standartenführer Jannings makes the hunt for Turner and his "Dead End Kids" an SS-led affair, placing von Hecht under the command of Taussig and reassigning his regular Wehrmacht troops to guard a tunnel. Not long after this, Turner and the boys steal a truck and drive to SS headquarters, slaughtering all of Taussig's men in a surprise attack. Killing the SS was enough for most of the boys, but not for Aldo, who is becoming emotionally and mentally unhinged. He wants to keep killing Germans.
Von Hecht, after an argument, shoots and kills Taussig in the aftermath of the attack on SS headquarters, and goes after Turner and the boys solo. While Turner and a few of the boys are planting Composition C charges on the dam, Aldo and a few of the others go against orders and directly engage the German guards on top of the dam, which very nearly costs the entire mission. Taking over an MG42, Aldo becomes blood-drunk as he mows down Germans, even going so far as to shoot down his own friend Carlo when Carlo blocks his shot. Despite interference from von Hecht, Turner and the kids successfully plant the explosives and blow up the dam, flooding the valley.
With the dam destroyed and the Germans routed, the American troops begin moving in. When Turner learns of Carlo's death, as well as that of another boy who died protecting Bianca and some of the younger children, he regrets having involved the children and breaks all of the guns. Aldo however refuses to hand his over, and runs off, encountering von Hecht, who survived the destruction of the dam. Aldo shoots and wounds him just as Turner catches up to him, and after failing to talk him out of finishing the German officer off, prevents him by force, taking his gun away. He takes von Hecht prisoner as von Hecht expresses his admiration for Turner's success.
Turner, Bianca, von Hecht and all of the surviving boys except for Aldo go down to meet the approaching column of American soldiers. Aldo lingers. After seeing to it that the others are safely aboard a truck, Turner goes back for Aldo, who angrily throws rocks at him because he stopped him from killing von Hecht. But finally he is overcome with remorse for having killed Carlo, and begs Turner's forgiveness. Turner gives it, and scoops the defeated and frightened boy up, and carries him to the waiting truck.

Review: Rock Hudson leads a little army of war waifs in WWII Italy against the Nazis.
So-so wartime movie follows a group of children saboteurs commanded by an Allied officer whose aim is to blow up a dam vital to the Nazis in Italy.
It happens during WWWII when Captain Turner (a moustachioed Rock Hudson )is lone survivor of an Army commando unit that parachuted into the Italian countryside .
Then the wounded captain is saved , meanwhile the children kidnap a German doctor ( a sultry Sylvia Koscina but rather unlikely medic) .
Turner wants the kids to help him blow up a dam and the boys want his help in getting avenge on the Nazis (Sergio Fantoni ,Jacques Sernas,Gerad Herter, Andrea Bosic) who had massacred his families and occupied their small village.This warlike movie packs well-staged action scenes , double-crosses, thrills, blood-letting images and criticism about the futility of war but doesn't quite hang together.
The nice international cast includes American , British, French and mostly Italian actors such as Sergio Fantoni, Giacomo Rossi Stuart, Andrea Bosic , among others.
Good musical score by usual Ennio Morricone and adequate cinematography by Gabor Pogany filmed on location in Italian outdoors.
This stirring movie will appeal to Rock Hudson fans and WWII buffs..
Decent Italian Anti-War Film.
REVIEW OF THE VERSION SHOWN ON TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES IN NORTH AmericaThis is one of many Italian WWII adventure films to be released in the late 1960s / early 1970s.
It's a familiar story, presented in a unique way with some American aspects thrown in.Leading man Rock Hudson stars as an American commando.
He is "rescued" by a band of Italian youngsters, who con him into helping them wreak havoc on the Nazis who took over their town and killed their families.
von Hecht (Sergio Fantoni) leads a hunt for Hudson and must cope with the S.S. to do so.This movie has a lot of fine aspects.
American star Rock Hudson has had his share of fame in plenty of classic movies; he's had experience in the war movie genre, too, in TOBRUK and the marvelous ICE STATION ZEBRA.
You'll see more of the incredibly beautiful Sylva Koscina than you've ever seen before; she's a nurse who's captured to aid Hudson, but is non-essential to the story.
Sergio Fantoni (VON RYAN'S EXPRESS) is very good as the one-eyed German Captain von Hecht, who will stop at nothing to stop Hudson from destroying the dam.
The script is intelligent is tells a familiar story from a unique viewpoint; showing young pre-teens battling the Nazis with machine guns and grenades is something that's rarely done.
Come on, guys -- the first 105 minutes showed war as a big adventure, and the last 5 makes it look like a colossal tragedy.
Sure, I think war IS bad and should be avoided if possible; but if you're gonna make an action movie, don't try to make a big statement at the end.
"Hornets' Nest" (1970) is far from a great World War II film, but I have a soft spot for it and it does contain some highlights.THE PLOT: The lone survivor of a paratrooper mission to blow up a dam in German-held Italy is rescued by a group of orphans, who live in a cave in the woods.
Their families where slaughtered by the Germans and they want to use the soldier to help them get revenge whereas he wants to train the kids so they can help him blow the dam.This is more of an Italian film than an American one and it shows in the Italian style of direction & editing, which sometimes comes off awkward.Everyone speaks English but the Germans and Italians are heavily accented, so I suggest using the subtitles.The biggest highlight is the moving score by Ennio Morricone.
The second is the beautiful Sylva Koscina, who plays the doctor that nurses the soldier (Rock Hudson) to health and hangs around the outcasts the entire film.
Sylva is just breathtaking throughout (and fully-clothed the entire time, I might add).Hudson is rock-solid as the taciturn soldier (sorry) and Mark Colleano is excellent as Aldo, the fanatical leader of the ragtag group of kids.
Sergio Fantoni is also notable as Captain Von Hecht; he's not a one-dimensional German officer and is actually a solid man who just got trapped on the wrong side of the war.There are a couple of action sequences, one being pretty far-fetched (when the soldier & the kids mow-down an entire village of Germans while riding in an Army truck), but the action is usually swift and quiet in the order of guerilla tactics.I like how the members of the outcast group, including the soldier and nurse, are always sweaty and dirty with messy hair and crumpled clothing.
If any other actor than Hudson played the role of the soldier, like Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson, there would be no such inane theory.
The difference being that "Hornets' Nest" takes place in Italy during WWII and involves a younger group of kids.
The real character that you have to clap for is the German Captain that was dissed by all his superiors pretty much for the whole movie when he was just doing his job in the best interest of the Fatherland.I went through all possible emotions during the flick and was overall happy with the movie having never seen it before.
I saw this film many years ago when it was panned because children were being used in a war movie.
People wanted Anti War movies like "The Deer Hunter" or heroic battle epics like "Tora, Tora, Tora".
"Hornet's Nest", was made in Italy and like the movie, "Two Women", made ten years before, it was not widely popular in the United States.
The patriotism of World War II had faded by the 1970's and the public demonstrations against Viet Nam were gaining force when "Hornets Nest" was released.
It was seen as a glorification of war and a fading star like Rock Hudson could not save it.
Ironically one of the actors playing an SS officer in the movie was a French Partisan who spent a year in Buchenwald after the Nazi's captured him.
The one female star, Sylvia Koscina, was a child in Yugoslavia, during the war and had memories of the Nazi occupation.
Sophia Loren began filming this movie and withdrew because it recalled too much of the trauma of her childhood in war time Italy.
The children who made this movie did a good job of showing the effect of war on young minds.
Those reviewers who made snide remarks about Rock Hudson's sexual preferences and the nudity of the teen and child actors in the movie were simply revealing their own salacious nature.
Based on actual events where Nazi troops committed atrocities against entire villages it was meant to remind the world of the savagery of a totalitarian military that had absolute control over the lives of helpless populations.
They all show the atrocity and dehumanizing effects of war in a much more graphic manner than does "Hornets Nest", as do many, many, other well respected films.
In the years since " Hornets Nest", the world has been treated to Bosnia, Rwanda, Somalia, and Serbia, where women and children are victims and participants in total warfare.
Children become partisan fighters much like the boys in this film.
War is bad for children and other living things.
It has been argued the Germans during World War Two made a number of mistakes with the various countries they conquered.
The single survivor called Turner (Rock Hudson) awakens from his wounds and discovers he owes his life to a group of Teenage boys.
Informed the SS is searching for him, Turner also learns an experience German Officer name Von Hecht (Sergio Fantoni) is also closing in on his whereabouts.
Realizing, he has little choice, Turner decides to use his hate-filled and revenge seeking youths to continue his mission to destroy the dam.
The movie itself is interesting in that instead of battle hard soldiers, Hudson has to first teach the kids to kill and then later must reverse his lessons.
To the credit of the young cast, the teens lead by vengeance seeking Aldo (Mark Colleano) do a remarkable job of acting.
However, much as I enjoy Hudson the actor, I can't help feel Charles Bronson or Burt Lancaster would have been a better choice as Husdon is not convincing as a rapist of women or abuser of children.
The Hornet's Nest of the title refers to the gang of Italian urchins who find Rock Hudson and a fascist female doctor played by Sylva Koscina to patch him up.Hudson has parachuted ahead of the advancing Fifth Army during the Italian campaign.
Their village was massacred by the S.S. looking for partisans and they want some payback.Rock has to recover first so the kids kidnap a female doctor to treat him for concussion and bruised ribs.
She's also quite an eyeful and in one scene, the older kids kind of forget the purpose of their mission.It's a routine action adventure story that probably Burt Lancaster or Kirk Douglas would have been better suited for than Rock Hudson.
Still Hudson turns in a decent performance, given what he has to work with.The sad thing about Hornet's Nest is that with the revelation of Rock's homosexuality the film became something of a joke, what with Rock and a gang of teenage boys.
Since then Italy has pretended that they were actually on the winning side."Hornet's Nest" is a product of this mentally, a propaganda film that would have been ludicrous had it been made during the war (even by propaganda film standards) but was just painful by 1970.
Prior to seeing "Hornet's Nest" I had believed that Rock Hudson's career bottomed out in 1971 with "Pretty Maids in a Row" and then was somewhat revived when he switched to television acting the next year.
Some war movies tease you at the beginning into believing they might be decent but "Hornet" crashes and burns with its very first scene as the evil Germans are shown massacring an entire Italian village with special emphasis on the Priest.
The premise of the film (which seems to be more afterthought than character motivation) is blowing up an Italian dam.
"Hornets' Nest" has been one of my favorite films ever since its release.
A few years ago I tracked it down on VHS, and I'm very glad I did because the versions I'd caught on television had all been edited.Rock Hudson is definitely the star, convincingly cast as an American army captain who finds himself expected to single-handedly destroy a strategic dam in occupied Italy.
Yet the story focuses just as much on Aldo, the teen-aged leader of the gang of boys who help him.
Acted with remarkable intensity by Mark Colleano, Aldo drives the action from beginning to end and in fact dominates the final scene.
Without Colleano's passion and energy to offset Hudson's more subdued performance, the movie would have been a forgettable war story.
Sergio Fantoni, on the other hand, is quite strong as a German captain who attempts to foil Hudson's mission.
"Walking Tall" director Phil Karlson made "Hornet's Nest," in Italy with Rock Hudson, Sylva Koscina, and Sergio Fantoni, showed what could happen when orphaned juvenile delinquents entered the fray with machine guns and an attitude.
Hudson starred as an Army Captain sent to destroy a dam, but the Germans ambush his men after they parachute into enemy territory and wipe them out, so only the Hudson character survives.
Meanwhile, the Germans wipe out an entire village of men and women, more specifically fathers and mothers as the partisans and the sons and daughters watch the massacre from afar.
This highly unusual war drama stars Hudson as a U.S. Commando dropped behind enemy lines in Italy.
Koscina plays a surgeon (with the least WWII-like and least doctor-like hair in film history!) who gets coerced into trying to save Hudson from his initial injuries during the drop.
The role is unnecessary, except to add female interest and visual, and the story would have been stronger with just Rock and his boys doing their thing.
(Who knows if producers were wary of a film like this with Hudson lacking a love interest and surrounded by scantily clad boys!.......) The plan involves carrying out the demolition of a massive dam and doing away with as many Nazis as they can in the process.
The reality of the film is hampered somewhat by having a Nazi general played by an obviously Italian actor (Fantoni) whose hair has been bleached (and fried) to a white crisp and by it's odd changes in tone.
An unbelievable amount of people are killed within the first opening moments of the film (including women in the process of nursing their babies!) In fact, virtually every character besides Hudson and the boys is offed by the ten minute mark (and this is not the end of the killing.) This much carnage doesn't leave any room for shock if a more prominent character dies...it's just part of the action.
This one's painful to watch for a number of reasons.SS troops taking orders from regular German Army officers of similar rank- not gonna happen...The very worst in 70's hairstyles in a movie taking places in the early 40's...Pretty female German doctor with lots of cleavage showing adds what to the plot?
Stilted dialog, improbable plot lines and....Rock Hudson running around with a bunch of young boys in their water soaked underpants....need anything more be said about this stinker?However, you do get some pretty Italian scenery, and the musical score is far superior to most of those in films of this period..
A dark and gritty World War II adventure movie filmed on location in Italy and co-produced by the Italians, this film is quite grimdark and violent, and also possibly one of the filthiest movies I've ever seen.
It all adds to the realism, of course; war is dirty and messy.Hornets' Nest stars macho man Rock Hudson, fresh off his successful starring role in the big screen adaptation of Alistair MacLean's novel Ice Station Zebra, as the determined Captain Turner.
He does a pretty good job in what is essentially a one-note tough guy role, although he does, later one, get to emote a bit during scenes where Turner wonders he's doing the right thing by arming a bunch of preteen and younger kids.Other standout performances include the achingly beautiful Sylva Koscina as Bianca, whose compassionate, kindhearted nature make it truly saddening all that she endures throughout the film.
Still, there is the uncomfortable scene where she's almost raped by the kids, and roughed up by Turner later, and I really have to wonder what in the world directors Phil Karlson and Franco Cirino were thinking.There's also Mark Colleano as Aldo, and wow, can that kid act!
Indeed, almost all the actors playing the boys do a good job, particularly Mauro Gravina as the adorable, ill-fated Carlo, and John Fordyce as Dino.
If Aldo represents all that is wrong with youth, then the warm and compassionate Dino and the eager, curious and hopeful (despite the tragedy that has befallen them) Carlo represent all that is good and pure in it.This finally brings us to the German characters, who save for Lithuanian actor Jacques Sernas as Taussig, are played almost entirely by Italians doing bad Teutonic accents.
His Taussig oozes despicable arrogance and casual cruelty.The best German character, though, and, indeed, probably the best character in the movie, is the very, very blonde Sergio Fantoni as Captain Friedrich von Hecht.
And (mild spoiler here), he isn't one of this egomaniacal hunters drunk on his own superiority over his enemy; when his own prey bests him in the end, he accepts his defeat with dignity.If the movie has a fault (the rape scenes aside), it is that it is a little on the unrealistic side when it comes to the battle scenes, and also can't quite seem to settle on a tone or moral.
We have (essentially) untrained kids mowing down countless Nazis left and right, and it can't quite seem to decide if it wants to show war as a fun adventure or as a grim reality with tragic psychological tolls that come with children becoming killers, and its efforts to have it both ways leave it feeling a bit disjointed..
"Hornet's Nest" starts me off with absolute hatred towards the most evil political party in European history, tied with the vicious thugs who terrorize world peace today.An entire village of aging townspeople and young mothers are viciously wiped out in the opening scene by the Nazi's.
The arrival of American parachuters leaves only Rock Hudson alive, brought into their cave.
They deceive Nazi doctor Sylvia Koscina into coming back to treat him, and making her their prisoner begin to turn her political beliefs around.A touching reminder how war touches so many lives and turns young boys into men over night, this isn't flawless by any means.
The actors playing the Italian teenagers do a perfect job for amateurs, with Mark Colleano passionate as the very determined leader.One scene that is very disturbing has Colleano preparing to rape Koscina simply out of revenge for what the Nazi's did to the women in his village.
Great photography is a plus, and the tension never lapses as Hudson and the boys (with fights from Koscina) build up to the plans to blow up the local dam.For me, the whole point of this movie (putting guns and explosives into the hands of children) is to show how that in times of war, when survival of decent communities is key, all must fight in one way or another.
Both boys' lives are already ruined by the time the Hudson character appears on the screen.
Dino is more sanguine, protective of the other boys and willing to accept Hudson as the natural leader.