Sacco & Vanzetti [Blu-ray]

Director: Giuliano Montaldo Giuliano Montaldo

Overview

One of the most notorious American judicial cases of the 20th century is paced and photographed like a spaghetti Western in the Italian Sacco and Vanzetti. There is no denying that Nicola Sacco (Riccardo Cucciolla) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti (Gian Maria Volontè) were anarchists. But it is highly doubtful that Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty of murder. However, their trial took place at the height of the 1920s "Red Scare," so there was little opportunity for the two men to receive fair treatment. Despite worldwide protests from politicians, intellectuals, and "average Joes," Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23, 1927, after spending nearly seven years on death row. Like most TV and film accounts of this story, Sacco and Vanzetti is clearly sympathetic to the main characters.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/03/2022
UPC:	0738329258566
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	NR
Source:	Kl Studio Classics
Language:	English
Time:	2:05:00
Sales rank:	8,746

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Gian Maria Volonte	Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Riccardo Cucciolla	Nicola Sacco
Cyril Cusack	Frederick Katzmann
Milo O'Shea	Fred Moore
Geoffrey Keen	Judge Webster Thayer
William Prince	William Thompson
Rosanna Fratello	Rosa Sacco
Claude Mann	Journalist
Edward Jewesbury	Actor
Armenia Balducci	Virginia
Valentino Orfeo	Actor
Lewis Ciannelli	Actor
Piero Anchisi	State Defense Committee Member
Desmond Perry	Actor
John Harvey	Actor
Felicity Mason	Actor
Marisa Fabbri	Mary Splaine
Maria Grazia Marescalchi	Actor
Paul Sheriff	Actor
Anthony Stergar	Actor
William Kenn	Actor
John Gray	Actor
Claudio Sora	Joe Morelli
Sergio Serafini	Actor
Giorgio Dolfini	Actor
Giacomo Piperno	Pelser
Giorgio Paoletti	Actor
Franco Odoardi	Actor
Raimondo Penne	Actor
Carlo Sabatini	McCallum
Raffaele Triggia	Actor
Page Jones	Actor
Romano Moschini	Actor
Charles Crowder	Actor
Riccardo Ventura	Actor
Francesco Conversi	Actor
Luchiano Palermo	Actor
Gian Volontè	Bartolomeo Vanzetti
Ennio Morricone	Composer

Technical Credits

Giuliano Montaldo

Ottavio Jemma

Fabrizio Onofri

Arrigo Colombo	Producer
Giuliano Montaldo	Director,Screenwriter
Giorgio Papi	Producer
Harry Colombo	Producer
Ottavio Jemma	Screenwriter
George Papi	Producer
Fabrizio Onofri	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

Giuliano Montaldo's Sacco and Vanzetti can be included not only on any list of fine political films of the early '70s, but also on a tally of unintended consequences stemming from the Vietnam War and its attendant social upheavals. The movie presents a one-sided view of the American justice system that is almost certainly accurate for the era depicted, and there was, indeed, a great deal of activism and speechifying associated with the two men's trial and its aftermath, leading up to their execution. The prosecution and execution was enough of a political and intellectual flash point to yield one great American play during the '30s, Maxwell Anderson's Winterset (which, in turn, became a fine movie), and the whole event became a lingering sore point among Europeans (especially Italians) for decades. The strident and didactic tone of Montaldo's film, therefore, is to be expected. Under ordinary circumstances, the movie would have gotten only modest distribution in the United States and no publicity. (Americans tend to know the less-than-brutal "truths" about their history, concentrating on the safest, rosiest, most one-sided outlook on most of it, and the Sacco and Vanzetti trial wasn't in the history curriculum of too many high schools.) The film should have passed barely noticed; instead, it became a hit, with extended runs in major cities and a lot of press behind it, and was even widely shown on television later in the decade. This was mostly a result of its having been released during the Vietnam War amid the Nixon administration's active campaign against anti-war immigrants and visitors (as well as citizens). Montaldo's movie ended up touching a raw nerve in the U.S. and providing a history lesson to many Americans who knew nothing of the original facts behind the case, and added to the radicalization of millions of them. As it happens, the film, for all of its stridency, is also well made, which helps. Established actors from the American and British stages, including Milo O'Shea, William Prince, and Cyril Cusack, provided just enough familiarity amid the largely Italian cast to make the movie work dramatically, and the message and story did the rest. In addition, the presence of Joan Baez, then a leader of the anti-war movement, on the soundtrack -- which yielded a charting single for RCA -- helped pull in thousands of politically sympathetic filmgoers. That said, Sacco and Vanzetti is ultimately a somewhat heavy-handed film, more message than drama, but the story it tells, coupled with the sincerity of its participants, overcomes that flaw, and its own history makes it as much a history lesson about the early '70s as the script was a history lesson about the '20s.

All Movie Guide - Bruce Eder