The Angel Wore Red [La Sposa Bella] * (1960, Ava Gardner, Dirk Bogarde, Joseph Cotten, Vittorio De Sica, Finlay Currie) – Classic Movie Review 11,401

‘A FUGITIVE… With a Price On His Head! A WOMAN… With a Price On Her Love!’: When Ava met Dirk in the 1960 film The Angel Wore Red… shot on location in Italy with members of the Italian mob as extras.

Writer-director Nunnally Johnson’s 1960 Italian-American war drama The Angel Wore Red [La Sposa Bella] is made by MGM and Titanus, and stars Ava Gardner, Dirk Bogarde, Joseph Cotten and Vittorio De Sica. Johnson’s screenplay is based on the 1953 novel The Fair Bride by Bruce Marshall.

Oh dear, poor Gardner and Bogarde are stuck in a witless mess about a spoiled young Catholic priest, Arturo Carrera (Bogarde), and a scarlet woman, the mysterious, beautiful Soledad (Gardner) falling in love during the Spanish Civil War, when they are taken by the loyal soldiers who want Bogarde to locate the Blood of St John holy relic statue, hidden by a cleric from the loyalists. In jail, Bogarde recovers his faith and Gardner is soon doing the right thing too.

Writer-director Johnson’s idea of the war, the country and his characters is as unconvincing as the acting.

Along with Gardner and Bogarde, Joseph Cotten, Vittorio De Sica and Finlay Currie are others to feel sorry for. Cotten plays New York war correspondent Hawthorne, De Sica plays Republican General Clave and Currie plays the bishop.

You would think with a title like that, MGM would have filmed in colour, but no, though Giuseppe Rotunno’s cinematography is still impressive.

Also in the cast are Aldo Fabrizzi, Arnoldo Foà, Nino Castelnuovo as Captain Trinidad, Robert Bright, Aldo Pini, Franco Castellani, Bob Cunningham, Rossana Rory, and Enrico Maria Salerno, Robert Bright as Father Idlefonso, Gustavo De Nardo as Major Garcia and Aldo Pini as Chaplain.

It runs 99 minutes for the American version and 95 minutes for the Italian version.

Giorgio Prosperi writes the dialogue for the Italian version. The score for the American version is by Bronislau Kaper and by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino for the Italian version.

The Angel Wore Red [La Sposa Bella] was shot in Italy around November 1959 in Catania, Sicily; Rome, Lazio; Monterosi, Viterbo; and Cinecittà Studios, Rome.

It cost plenty ($1,843,000) and earned sparingly ($935,000 total worldwide), resulting in a loss of $1,527,000 and making it one of MGM’s bigger flops of the year.

It was released in Italy on 14 April 1960 and in the US on 28 September 1960.

Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Niven van den Bogaerde; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) wrote seven best-selling volumes of memoirs and six novels. He twice won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor, for The Servant (1963) and Darling (1965).

Nino Castelnuovo plays Captain Trinidad.

Nino Castelnuovo (born on 28 October 1936 in Lecco, Lombardy) is best known for The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Later he worked primarily on TV and the Italian theatre. He appeared briefly as D’Agostino in The English Patient (1996), He died on 6 September 2021 in Rome at the age of 84.

The cast are Ava Gardner as Soledad, Dirk Bogarde as Arturo Carrera, Joseph Cotten as Hawthorne, Vittorio De Sica as Republican General Clave, Aldo Fabrizi as Canon Rota, Arnoldo Foà as Insurgent major, Finlay Currie as Bishop, Rossana Rory as Mercedes, Enrico Maria Salerno as Captain Botargus, Robert Bright as Father Idlefonso, Bob Cunningham as Mac, Gustavo De Nardo as Major Garcia, Nino Castelnuovo as Captain Trinidad, and Aldo Pini as Chaplain.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,401

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