The Condemned of Altona [I Sequestrati di Altona] ** (1962, Sophia Loren, Maximilian Schell, Fredric March, Robert Wagner) – Classic Movie Review 10,961

Director Vittorio De Sica’s 1962 CinemaScope and black and white Italian-French drama The Condemned of Altona [I Sequestrati di Altona] stars Sophia Loren, Maximilian Schell, Fredric March and Robert Wagner, with the international version dubbed. Vittorio De Sica won the David di Donatello award for Best Director,

Jean-Paul Sartre’s high-minded play about Hamburg big industrialist ship-folk is a grim and gloomy film as scripted by Abby Mann and Cesare Zavattini. But there are eye-catching performances by old Fredric March as terminally ill German industrial tycoon Albrecht von Gerlach (who has to sort out his two sons Franz and Werner and his estate in the few months he has to live), Maximilian Schell as crazed ex-Nazi officer World War Two war criminal Franz von Gerlach, Robert Wagner as playboy Werner von Gerlach, and Sophia Loren as his actress wife Johanna von Gerlach.

Also in the cast are Françoise Prévost as Albrecht’s daughter Leni von Gerlach, Alfredo Franchi as Groundskeeper, Lucia Pelella as Groundskeeper’s wife, Roberto Massa as Chauffeur, Antonia Cianci as Maid, Carlo Antonini as Police Official, Armando Sifo as Policeman, Osvaldo Peccioli as Cook, Gabriele Tinti, Dino De Luca and Ekkehard Schall.

The Condemned of Altona [I Sequestrati di Altona] is directed by Vittorio De Sica, runs 114 minutes, is made by Titanus and SGC, is released by Titanus (1962) (Italy) and 20th Century Fox (1963) (US) dubbed, is written by Abby Mann and Cesare Zavattini, is shot in CinemaScope widescreen and black and white by Roberto Gerardi, is produced by Carlo Ponti, is scored by Nino Rota and Dmitri Shostakovich, and is designed by Elvezio Frigerio.

Its box-office failure put its Italian production company Titanus Films in financial trouble, though even with these stars it is hard to imagine a box-office success with this project. They advertised it hopefully as ‘A Motion Picture As Unusual As The Roles of Its Academy Award Winning Stars!’

All references to National Socialism were cut from the West German version.

Although Nino Rota is credited for the score, the music is from the third movement, Eternal Memory, of the Symphony No 11 (Year 1905) by Dmitri Shostakovich.

Jean-Paul Sartre’s play The Condemned of Altona [Les Séquestrés d’Altona] [Loser Wins] was first produced in 1959 at the Théâtre de la Renaissance in Paris. It is set in Altona, a borough of the German city state of Hamburg. It is Sartre’s only fictional work dealing directly with Nazism, and also comments on the Algerian War of the time.

Sartre notes: ‘A family of big German industrialists, the von Gerlachs, live near Hamburg in an ugly old mansion in the middle of a park. The father, who has only six months to live, calls together his daughter Leni, his younger son Werner, and Werner’s wife Johanna, to inform them of his last wishes.’

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,961

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