A Bell for Adano

Based on John Hersey's bestselling novel, this film hit cinemas at about the same time as Rossellini's films depicting the impact of the occupation upon Italy and doesn't suffer from the comparison.

Done with grace and humour and full of life, it contains the most of the virtues and few of the vices of a Hollywood blockbuster of the period. (Both Joseph LaShelle's high-contrast photography and the use of sound to covey the acoustics of the requisitioned Town Hall add to the atmosphere).

John Hodiak is excellent in the lead and is flanked by a wonderful supporting cast ranging from Marcel Dalio (who at opposite ends of his acting career appeared in the anti-war epics 'La Grande Illusion' and 'Catch-22') to Henry Morgan (later Col. Potter in 'MASH'); while the cast also includes silent director Monty Banks (here billed as 'Montague') and future director Hugo Haas.

I know that the movie is a bit unrealistic in its characterizations. I know that the movie is a bit heavy-handed in its stereotypical portrayals of the Italians. I know that the movie is fiction, and that no matter how much you try to sugar-coat the story, the fact is that Italy was a member of the Axis alliance, was belligerent and fascist, and went over to the Allied side only after it was thoroughly defeated. So any portrayals of Italians being particularly passive or pro-American circa 1945 must be taken with a huge grain of salt. All this being said, I still liked this movie. The movie brings out, in typical Hollywood fashion, that the United States and the Allies DID liberate Italy from fascism, and which prevented Italy from becoming a total basket case like Germany and Japan became after the war. The pro-American bias of the movie is unmistakable, but as a World War Two movie what else could you expect? The fact is that the United States liberated Western Europe from Nazism and fascism, and movies like "A Bell for Adono" serve to ensure that what the United States did to help Italy and the rest of Europe is not forgotten.

In another attempt to depict Americans as the saviours of Europe post-WWII, Henry King's 'A Bell for Adano' centres on the rebuilding of an Italian town bombarded and driven to despair, rescued by the American 'invaders' who come to build civil peace.

The Italians are in the main shown in a comic way, as children who are incapable of governing themselves, or as joke fascists. A curious view at the time in history it was made, right at the end of the war. The Americans (the good-looking Major, the snipey Captain, the loyal but dumb Sergeant) have a bit more character but are still stereotypical Army types.

In the cast, John Hodiak is good as usual, helped this time by the stellar support of Harry Morgan, William Bendix, and Glenn Langan (as a too-good-to-be-true naval officer). Gene Tierney is a bottle-blonde lovely in the town and a love interest for Hodiak, although her acting is little more than passable.

I liked this film in the main as it manages to make an impact within a limited plotline. Now rarely seen and not available on video/DVD, it doesn't deserve to be in obscurity but to be seen and celebrated with other films made during and just after wartime.

John Hersey's acclaimed Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Bell For Adano was purchased by 20th Century Fox and turned into a fine film. Darryl Zanuck borrowed John Hodiak from MGM probably because Tyrone Power was serving in the Marines at this time. Hodiak also did around the same time Lifeboat for Alfred Hitchcock also for 20th Century Fox. So for an MGM contract player Hodiak got two of his finest roles on loan to another studio. Happens that way some time.

Hodiak who is Major Joppolo, an Italian American from the Bronx has that much going for him as he's appointed military governor of the recently liberated town of Adano. That's considerable because he already has some familiarity with the culture.

The town wants the bare necessities, food, medical supplies, etc., but it also wants something. They had the biggest church bell around and it was there for hundreds of years. But Mussolini melted it down for cannon and from every quarter Hodiak is told get us our bell back or a new one just as good.

Hodiak deals with all kinds of situations trying to form an occupation government and there is the question of who to trust among the Italians. But the real test for Hodiak comes when an order is issued to keep all civilian traffic off the main road into Adano. The problem is that there are no side roads into the town, one way in and one way out. Hodiak takes it on his own initiative to countermand the order. He gets in trouble with the army, but earns the heartfelt thanks of the people of Adano.

Henry King got some great performances out of his ensemble and the recreation of occupied Italy is impressively done. Hodiak was a tough and compassionate man all at once with a lot of responsibility on his shoulders. It's definitely one of his best roles.

Also standing out is William Bendix as Hodiak's senior non-commissioned officer who backs Hodiak up all the way in his governing policies. Gene Tierney plays one of the villagers who wants Hodiak to find what happened to her boyfriend who was in the Italian army and providing some hospitality if needed. Harry Morgan is in A Bell For Adano playing a military police captain who is interested in covering his posterior in the military tradition. Finally there's Richard Conte who has a beautiful scene with Hodiak and Tierney as a recently released Italian soldier who tells them of the fate of Tierney's boyfriend.

For some reason A Bell For Adano the movie has been strangely forgotten and a lot of younger people haven't heard of it. That's a pity because this film is a neglected treasure.

This is another of those very rare films that are like no other films, unique and differing from everything else, while of course you recognize most of the Italian expressions of temperament, emotion and human complications and outbursts from most other Italian films, but this American film actually succeeds in capturing the very Italian element and even the Sicilian element. The town of Adano does not exist and never did, but the inspiration for the Pulitzer winning novel by John Hersey has its source in a small Sicilian town on the south coast close to Agrigento called Licata, and if you know anything about Sicily you would immediately recognize the environment and mentality in the film as Sicilian, if you didn't know it beforehand. John Hodiak as major Joppolo, curiously like John Steinbeck, makes perhaps the role and perfomance of his life, and if you don't remember him for any other performance, you will remember him for this one. William Bendix, always reliable and indomitable as a character actor, is his closest associate and makes as usual a very memorable performance. You will perhaps be shocked to find Gene Tierney here as a blonde Italian, but she makes the best of it. Another character not to bypass, for a short but the more remarkable performance, is Richard Crenna as an Italian soldier and released prisoner. Perhaps the major highlight and most moving scene in the film is when the village, almost exclusively inhabited by women, receives back all its prisoners, sons and husbands that have been gone since the beginning of the war, while all the women go out to meet them in the square. It is one of the finest moments in any war film. The story is all about a church bell, missing when the major arrives to take charge of the village, while a clique of the villagers insist the return of the church bell being the most important need for the starving village, and the major goes through great pains to achieve that goal. The film ends in deep melancholy sadness but at the same time in glorious triumph. It's a great story, and no wonder the novel won the Pulitzer prize - Henry King's direction of the film goes meticulously about not missing anything of the great deserts of the novel.