La soglia dell'inferno

This low-budget, old-fashioned film, set in Italy during World War II, is probably best remembered for Mickey Rooney's Oscar-nominated performance in a supporting role. And he does steal the show as Dooley, the fast-talking soldier with a dream. But the primary plot revolves around Wendell Corey and Don Taylor's roles as soldiers with very different approaches to war, and life. Corey and Taylor also do fine work, if less flamboyant than Mickey's. The film is extremely well-plotted, in a way that's very rare in today's movies, and the screenplay also was Oscar-nominated. It's a thoughtful piece with something to say about human character. The film has basically disappeared from view. It never appears on TV, and is very hard to find anywhere. But if you come across it, it's well worth viewing.

The names of three of the actors in this film are probably not very well known today, Wendell Corey, Don Taylor and Nicole Maurey. Mickey Rooney, who is I hope remembered rightly got an Oscar for his role, and the film is extremely good because of its balanced and well written screenplay. The director is unknown to me, and Mickey Rooney directed himself in a gambling scene, and that scene alone is worthy of the best of Howard Hawks. The film is set towards the end of WW2 in Italy, and the first half is a psychological journey for three soldiers and a woman who has turned to prostitution to survive. She falls in love with a preacher, at first against his religious beliefs and when he discovers her past his disgust overwhelms him, and there are consequences to this for the men who serve under him. No spoilers but the love scenes when he is temporarily transformed by love are beautifully acted and moving to watch. Don Talor plays the preacher and Nicole Maurey the woman who needs love, and not to be used. Wendell Corey is brilliant as a man who cannot kill, and his psychological development is accurate and again moving. The latter part of the film is grim in its war scenes, and the futility of war is admirably conveyed. I am not a fan of most War films, but this joins the handful that I do admire and respect. I would give it a ten if it was not for the final words onscreen, focussing too much on cowardice and bravery. These men are just there, doing their best in a theatre of war and suffering, and in this film, it is the analysis of their inner selves that is paramount. The same story could have been equally told from the other side. Well worth seeing.

After a fallow period during the early fifties Mickey Rooney established himself as a fine straight actor, a position consolidated in this otherwise very ordinary war film set in Italy in 1944 to which Rooney not only contributed the title song but collected an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

The best performance is as usual provided by Wendall Corey with his regular quiet authority. Don Taylor - soon to give up acting in favour of directing - is strictly speaking the star as a Holy Joe who's heart is broken by a brunette Nichole Maurey pretending to be an Italian as a local girl with whom he shares a glass of buttermilk before it all ends in tears.

I hadn't seen this since childhood; the moving climax stuck in my mind long after the ballad sung over the credits faded from memory. The crap game is somewhat replicated a few years later in the memorable Mickey Rooney-starring episode of COMBAT!: "Silver Service". Mickey brings the same self-effacing, self-sacrificing ebullience to the role of Harry White as he does to Dooley in The BOLD AND THE BRAVE... Louis Morgan says, on his blog: ''Mickey Rooney is an actor who is commonly derided by modern viewers for his Rooney mannerisms, and tendency to overact his parts. I must personally I have no animosity toward Rooney. Firstly he showed in The Human Comedy he is capable of giving a moving performance, secondly I personally never had a problem with his Rooneyisms. This is not to say that I do not understand people who do hold this animosity, Rooney certainly is an actor that if he rubs you the wrong way he probably really rubs you the wrong way. He simply does not annoy me in that way, although it most certainly is true that his performances tend to be better when they are further away from a typical Rooney performance than closer.''

Highest recommendation!

Set in a unit of the U.S. infantry during the Italian campaign of 1944, this focuses on three soldiers. Fairchild (Wendell Corey) whom in civilian life had got by doing very little after marrying a rich woman, further doubts himself after failing to kill an enemy sniper. He is saved by his sergeant, known as Preacher (Don Taylor) a puritanical bigot whose upbringing has left him with all sorts of hang-ups with the notable exception of "Thou shalt not kill". Extrovert Willie Dooley (Mickey Rooney) is a compulsive and successful gambler, obsessed with winning as much as he can to set himself and his family up in the restaurant business after the war.

This is a mostly gripping film which succeeds in portraying the heroism, courage and spirit of self-sacrifice demanded of soldiers in battle without glorifying war. The leading actors are all good with Rooney's fast-talking ebullient character particularly memorable; his marathon crap game provides the film's funniest moments. Nicole Maurey gives a sensitive performance as a beautiful Italian girl with whom Preacher falls in love, prior to callously dumping her on learning she's previously been with other men for money to survive. Perhaps best of all is Wendell Corey, one of those actors who could create believable characters with hidden depths, while apparently doing very little, who brings a quiet integrity to the part of Fairchild. It's all introduced with a rousing march, to which Mickey Rooney supplied the lyrics.