La pourpre et le noir

Based on a true story set during World War II in Rome, this made for television movie stars Gregory Peck in yet another fine role,(as if he could ever do a bad one.)The supporting cast is also amazing with fine performances from Christopher Plummer and Sir John Gielgud, with Raf Valone, Vernon Dobchef and Walter Gotell among others.

It is a fast paced history/war/drama/thriller in the mold of such films as "The Third Man," and "The Thirty Nine Steps." The frenetic musical score of Ennio Morricone (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) helps to keep the pace on the edge of you seat. This is simply some fine film making at its very best, and I highly recommend it, if you have not already had a chance to see it. Just a beautiful film.

There are not too many movies I could say I like but this one was great. The acting is really good from all the actors.. The story was very serious, It is a very tense movie. The Nazi's take over Rome and watch everyone.

Col Kappler, a Nazi is in charge of the base in Rome. He commands his men to put a white painted line near the Vatican where those in the Vatican have to stay behind the line and supposedly his soldiers won't cross it.

Gregory Peck plays a Irish Catholic priest who plays Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty. He heads a group of people in Italy that hide people in safe houses from the Nazis. Kappler has the priest followed everywhere to see who his friends are and who is hiding the people. O'Flaherty is aware of this and out smarts the soldiers and dresses up in different disguises to meet those in charge of his group.

Col Kappler despises O'Flaherty because the priest defies him in many ways. Kappler has a wife and two kids that live in Rome and are very spoiled. They are the only people Kappler cares about plus getting praised for his military successes.

Kappler and his soldiers have to leave Rome. There are soldiers coming in to get them out. He has failed and wants O'Flaherty to get his family out. Kappler talks about forgiveness and what the priest believes but the priest does not buy his attempts to get him to save his wife and children and tells him off.

This is a very serious part. Gregory Peck plays a man of strength through God, bravery in really tough times, trustworthy, faithful and full of love for his fellow man.

You have to watch it yourself. The end is very good and has some surprising results.

The film focuses on the dangerous situation faced by the Holy See in standing up to Nazi oppression. The Vatican, after all, has no military power and after the forcible confiscation of the Papal States by Italian nationalists during the pontificate of Pius IX near the close of the 19th century, he and at least two of his successors considered themselves as prisoners in the Vatican of the secular Italian state. Ignoring the warnings of the Popes against supranationalism in encyclicals like Non Abbiamo Biscogno and Mit Brenender Sorge, Italy and Germany persisted in pursuing social orders based on Fascism and Nazism. Yet despite the difficulties, many Catholics and religious like Msgr. Flaherty performed their Christian duties heroically by saving some of the persecuted Jews.

John Gielgud makes a very convincing Pope Pius XII. Sir John aged very gracefully giving him that perpetual angelic half smile on that kind face. Contrast this to the fact that we remember him well as the blackguard Casca in Julius Caesar (with James Mason and Marlon Brando). As Pius XII, Gielgud portrays the late Pope as torn between his duty to ensure the safety of the Church and Catholics and the necessity of actively participating in rescuing the Jews of Europe lest that provoke the Nazis towards more brutalities. The recently released Actes et Documents du Saint Siege relatiffs a la Guerre Mondiale Seconde (Acts and Documents of the Holy See relative to WWII or ADSS) reveal that the Holy See saw a relation between increased persecution of both Jews and Catholics, especially the religious orders, every time Pius XII spoke against the Nazis. It also disclosed that Jewish leaders, both in and out of Nazi Germany, advised the Pope to speak and act more discreetly because of this.

Gregory Peck is, as usual, dignified, likable and very convincing as a brave Catholic monsignor. An interesting political sidelight in the movie concerned Flaherty saving some British Tommies stranded behind enemy lines in Italy. One of them obviously not one fond of the Irish, upon hearing Flaherty's Celtic brogue exclaimed that he was Irish. Flaherty's response was to the effect, that he may not like what the British were doing in Ireland but it was still his Christian duty to help them. Remember, at the time Southern Ireland was still under British rule under very repressive conditions (cf. Leon Uris' book, Trinity).

If you liked movies of this genre you should also see Portrait : A Man Whose Name was John which starred Raymond Burr as the Papal Nuncio in Turkey, Msgr. Roncalli, the future Pope John XXIII who used his position and his chancery to save thousands of Jews escaping from Nazi-occupied Hungary. Other Hollywood films which treated the Church kindly if not sympathetically are: The Shoes of the Fisherman (Anthony Quinn) and The Cardinal (Tom Tryon).

This should be mandatory viewing in all "20th Century Europe" history classes. Also, unlike what another viewer inferred, the romance between the young couple in the movie is NOT fictional. It is based on real people and they did marry after the end of the war. Read about it in "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican" which is available at libraries. Also, anyone who liked this movie would love the book and the movie "The Assisi Underground". The movie stars James Mason, Maximilian Schell, Irene Papas and Ben Cross. Their is also a documentary of this story available thru interlibrary loans called "Assisi in Silence". It was filmed in Assisi and has real interviews with people and relatives involved in saving Jews in Assisi.

Ever since I saw this made-for-TV film when it first aired, and then on video many times, I had wondered about the book on which it is based.

The book is entitled "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican," by J. P. Gallagher. It is the story of Irish Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty who was a minor Vatican official during World War II. Right under the noses of Vatican officials who looked the other way, and the German army, he helped smuggle allied soldiers out of Rome to safety in the months before the liberation of Rome. Rome and the Vatican were supposed to be neutral; if the Germans found out that the monsignor was helping the allies, who knows what would have happened.

I was able to find a copy of the book several years ago but have lost it. I do recall though that it had even more incredible stories about how O'Flaherty helped allied soldiers. One of the best (that is not in the movie) was about one American soldier whose appendix burst and he needed it removed. O'Flaherty dressed him as a German soldier, called the German army, they came and took him to their hospital - and O'Flaherty managed to get the soldier out before he even woke up because of the general confusion in the military hospital.

The Scarlett Pimpernel reference, is of course, to the British spy who helped save people from being beheaded during the French Revolution. That's another good book and the movie, with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour, are both excellent (though the movie changed the ending...).