The 25th Hour (film)
The 25th Hour (French: La Vingt-cinquième Heure) is a 1967 anti-war drama film directed by Henri Verneuil and starring Anthony Quinn and Virna Lisi.[1] It was produced by Carlo Ponti.[2] The film is based on the best selling novel by C. Virgil Gheorghiu.[3] It follows the troubles experienced by a Romanian peasant couple caught up in World War II.[4]
| The 25th Hour (La Vingt-cinquième Heure) | |
|---|---|
 Film poster by Howard Terpning | |
| Directed by | Henri Verneuil |
| Produced by | Carlo Ponti |
| Written by | François Boyeur Wolf Mankowitz Henri Verneuil |
| Starring | Anthony Quinn Virna Lisi |
| Music by | Georges Delerue |
| Cinematography | Andreas Winding |
| Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
|
Running time | 196 minutes (Europe) |
| Country | France Italy Yugoslavia |
| Language | French English Romanian |
Plot
In a small village in Romania, a local police constable frames Johann Moritz (Quinn) on charges of being Jewish, because Moritz' wife, Suzanna, has refused his advances. Moritz is sent to a Romanian concentration camp as a Jew, Jacob Moritz. He escapes to Hungary with some Jewish prisoners where the Hungarians imprison them for being citizens of an enemy country (Romania). The Hungarian authorities eventually send them to Germany to fill German "requests" for foreign labourers. In Germany Moritz is spotted by an SS officer who designates him as an Aryan German-Romanian, freeing him from the labour camp and forcing him to join the Waffen-SS. After the war, Moritz is brutally beaten by the Soviets for being a member of the Waffen-SS in the and then arrested and prosecuted as a war criminal by the Americans. Eventually he is released and re-united with his wife and sons in occupied Germany.
The picture is based on the novel of the same name by Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu. The story line includes Hungary's alliance with Nazi Germany, the forced cession of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union in 1940 and subsequent events in Central Europe during and after the Second World War.
Cast
- Anthony Quinn as Johann Moritz
- Virna Lisi as Suzanna Moritz
- Serge Reggiani as Traïan Koruga
- Grégoire Aslan as Dobresco
- Michael Redgrave as Defence lawyer
- Marcel Dalio as Strul (as Dalio)
- Jacques Marin as the soldier at Debresco
- Françoise Rosay as Mrs. Nagy
- Paul Pavel as a prisoner in the truck
- Jacques Préboist as a prisoner in the truck
- Jean Desailly as the minister's chief of staff
- Albert Rémy as Joseph Grenier
- Jan Werich as Sgt. Constantin
- Jacques Marbeuf as the german officer
- Robert Beatty as Colonel Greenfield
- Harold Goldblatt as Isaac Nagy
- Alexander Knox as Prosecutor
- Liam Redmond as Father Koruga
- Meier Tzelniker as Abramovici
- Kenneth J. Warren as Insp. Varga
- John Le Mesurier as Tribunal president
- Serge Reggiani as Trajan Koruga
References
- "La 25E HEURE (1967)". BFI.
- "The 25th Hour (1967) - Articles - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies.
- "C. Virgil Gheorghiu; Romanian Author, 75". June 24, 1992 – via NYTimes.com.
- "La Vingt-Cinquième Heure (1967) - Henri Verneuil | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related". AllMovie.
External links