Sulle orme dei ragazzi del "I Lupi Attaccano in Branco"

Tradotto dall'inglese con Deep.l

di Lakambini (Bing) Sitoy

Articolo originale in inglese 

L'ultima settimana di agosto siamo volati in Italia, atterrando a Milano Malpensa e prendendo poi il treno da Milano a Piacenza.  È qui che il cast e la troupe hanno fatto base durante i tre o quattro mesi (da giugno a settembre) in cui è stato girato Nido di calabroni.

Sul treno c'era un ragazzo molto gentile (italiano, di Piacenza) che ha aiutato mio marito a portare la valigia giù e fino alle scale. Allo stesso tempo c'era un giovane simpatico (africano nero) che mi ha aiutato a portare la mia! Appena usciti dalla stazione, la cosa che mi ha colpito è stato il caldo. Acceso e secco. Un calore che bruciava la pelle. C'erano 33-34 gradi.

Decidemmo di trascinare le nostre valigie dalla stazione al nostro hotel: secondo la mappa erano solo 1,1 chilometri e ci sarebbero voluti solo 16 minuti. Abbiamo costeggiato il parco che si trova appena dopo la stazione (attenendoci al marciapiede di cemento per evitare i sentieri di ghiaia). Abbiamo incrociato un gruppo di persone che parlavano una delle lingue filippine - tagalog o cebuano, non ricordo. C'era una giovane donna con tacchi altissimi, una donna molto incinta in pantaloncini da ciclista, un'altra donna che portava in braccio un bambino di circa un anno, un uomo giovane alto più o meno come le donne.  

Mentre continuavamo a trascinare le valigie, siamo stati superati da una giovane famiglia, con la donna che teneva in braccio un bambino (forse un trio del gruppo che avevamo visto prima nella piazza?). Anche loro filippini. Nelle 24 ore successive avrei notato la presenza di molti neri africani, sud-asiatici e qualche altro filippino. Residenti, non turisti, ma solo persone che si fanno i fatti loro.

Dopo mezz'ora trovammo il Grande Albergo Roma. Si trovava in un angolo, a pochi passi dalla piazza principale, Piazza del Cavalli. L'ingresso era molto poco appariscente: porte di vetro a pochi gradini, il nome su un'insegna verticale lungo il lato. Avrebbe potuto essere l'ingresso di una piccola banca. Nell'atrio c'erano quadri moderni in colori primari e il mattino seguente abbiamo fatto una piacevole colazione al ristorante del settimo piano, con un buffet ben arredato, tutto pulito e sobrio, che merita le sue quattro stelle.

L'uomo e la donna alla reception erano gentili, ma nessuno di loro aveva sentito parlare dell'Hornet's Nest. Avevano già organizzato un taxi che ci venisse a prendere alle 10 di sabato per portarci a Monticello, fermarsi per circa un'ora e riportarci indietro. L'uomo era di Piacenza ed era un ragazzino nel 1969.  Non ne aveva mai sentito parlare da nessuno. Hanno dovuto chiedere quando si sono svolte le riprese e quando ho detto loro che il cast e la troupe avevano soggiornato proprio in questo albergo dal luglio al settembre 1969, sono rimasti sorpresi ma non entusiasti.

È chiaro che il film non fa parte dell'eredità o della leggenda del luogo (speravo in qualche prova, foto di Rock Hudson al ristorante... ma l'hotel è troppo internazionalmente a quattro stelle, troppo simile a un aeroporto moderno, per questo). Quando hanno cercato su Google il nome del film dopo che glielo avevo fornito in italiano (I Lupi attaccano in branco, anziché Il Vespaio, che non si usa più), il nome del cast che hanno riconosciuto sembrava essere Jacomo Rossi Stewart, che ha una piccola parte nel film.

Piacenza sembra una normale città industriale come la ricordava Dan Keller, ma ci sono delle piccole sacche di bellezza, forse il modo in cui il sole brilla sui tetti di tegole rosse o illumina un muro, lasciando i lati in un'ombra blu. Dalla nostra finestra si vedeva il retro degli edifici, una vista normale, ma c'era una certa gioia nel sapere che si trattava del retro degli edifici che si affacciavano su Piazza del Cavalli. Quella sera e il giorno seguente ho indagato sulle sculture di cavalli che fiancheggiano la piazza. È stato emozionante vedere i cavalli italiani durante il nostro viaggio, nella realtà e nell'arte. Vivendo in Danimarca mi sono abituata alla presenza dei cavalli, ma in Italia sono un po' diversi: potenti, contorti e piuttosto sexy. In Danimarca sono utilitari, pesanti e dritti - cavalli da tiro piuttosto che destrieri e cavalcature. I cavalieri danesi che vedo non vanno al galoppo, ma procedono seduti lungo le briglie o i bordi delle strade. Anche a Monticello ci sono scuderie, a meno di un chilometro da La Nera.  (Non ho avuto modo di cercarli, però, perché c'erano altre cose da fare). Dietro la reception dell'hotel c'era una gigantografia di uno dei cavalli della Piazza del Cavalli. Il giorno seguente abbiamo assaggiato gli hamburger di cavallo in un piccolo caffè, così ho avuto la mia dose di equini.

Abbiamo alloggiato in una camera normale al quinto piano, dove c'erano due suite, intitolate a compositori italiani. Al piano superiore si trovava la suite più grande dell'hotel. Guardando le foto che ho inviato via e-mail, Dan ha confermato che l'Albergo Roma è stato rinnovato da quando la maggior parte del cast e della troupe di Hornet's Nest ha soggiornato qui nel 1969 - era più piccolo e più accogliente, meno (ha convenuto) simile a un aeroporto moderno. All'epoca si chiamava ancora Albergo Roma.  Ho saputo da lui che le due star del film, Rock Hudson e Silva Koscina, hanno vissuto in case di lusso in affitto per tutta la durata delle riprese.  

Io e mio marito non ci allontanammo molto dall'albergo e consumammo una cena leggera a base di pasta in un caffè, seduti all'aperto, in Piazza del Cavalli. La piazza era praticamente deserta, anche se era venerdì sera. Forse era troppo presto, anche se siamo rimasti seduti lì dalle 19:30 alle 21:00 circa. Di fronte a noi c'era un porticato che sembrava antico, dove si era radunata una clientela più giovane, che mangiava patatine fritte italiane (non so come si chiamino, ma vengono servite in un cestino) e beveva qualcosa, nonostante fosse, per gli standard danesi, l'ora di cena. Non c'erano vespe. Avevo letto da qualche parte che erano vietate nei vecchi centri d'Italia... Non sono però sicuro che ciò sia corretto. Quindi, sebbene le Vespe siano molto presenti nei portachiavi e nelle calamite, erano quasi assenti all'occhio del turista comune. Al loro posto c'erano gli altrettanto pericolosi fattorini su biciclette troppo veloci e pesanti, con le loro ingombranti scatole. Esagero (come accade quando si attraversa allegramente un sentiero lastricato e si viene quasi falciati da uno di loro - mi è successo qualche giorno dopo a Verona). Ma in generale c'erano molte più biciclette che Vespe, e ho notato bambini piccoli montati sul manubrio mentre i loro padri pompavano.

E in qualche modo quello che abbiamo visto sembrava essere il modello di vita più pulito, più vecchio, più rarefatto delle piccole città filippine. Non è così strano se si considera che le città filippine sono state originariamente progettate sulla falsariga delle città spagnole, nel XIX secolo o giù di lì, e la configurazione non è cambiata in tutti questi anni, e assomiglia in qualche modo alla disposizione delle “città” italiane, con una chiesa cattolica, un edificio municipale e una scuola intorno a una piazza centrale (piazza o plaza); ci possono essere anche altre piazze più piccole o un parco verde paesaggistico. La differenza sta, tra l'altro, nei materiali di costruzione e nelle facciate.

Ho fotografato la piazza anche di notte. Ho pensato che i ragazzi del cast devono aver esplorato molto da soli, dopo aver terminato le riprese della giornata. Pensavo a come doveva essere tanti anni fa: andavano anche in Vespa? Alcuni dei ragazzi più grandi avrebbero avuto l'età giusta. Alcuni avrebbero potuto avere già una fidanzata, lasciata a Roma o a Napoli. Non ho visto nessun giovane in giro per la piazza: solo turisti o italiani dai 25 anni in su. Dove si ritrovano oggi gli adolescenti, le coppie di corteggiatori? O sono così antico e poco sofisticato da credere ancora che le “coppie di corteggiatori” esistano? Devono essere tutti al telefono.

Nel 1969 si fumava molto, come è evidente nel film. Si beveva anche? C'era un accompagnatore, una specie di consigliere del campeggio, per assicurarsi che tutti si comportassero bene? (Oggi diremmo “per la sicurezza dei bambini”) I loro genitori potrebbero essere venuti, coppia per coppia, a vedere come stavano, proprio come hanno fatto i genitori di Dan, pagati dalla produzione. Traduttori? Come comunicavano i ragazzi tra loro? Ho l'impressione che, verso la fine delle riprese, i ragazzi di Napoli abbiano cominciato a frequentarsi tra loro, mentre i ragazzi di Roma o con un background anglofono hanno formato un altro gruppo. Non credo che i registi abbiano detto loro (nelle riprese di gruppo) dove stare, e vedo questi due raggruppamenti sia nelle immagini del dietro le quinte che nel film stesso.  È un comportamento molto naturale.  (Cosa confermata anche da Dan, secondo cui si sono “auto-segregati” in base alla lingua e ad altri punti in comune).

Il giorno seguente abbiamo preso il taxi che avevamo prenotato, dirigendoci a sud-ovest verso La Nera a Monticello, e che esperienza mozzafiato. Seguiranno altre informazioni. 

In the footsteps of the Hornets' Nest boys

IN THE last week of August, we flew to Italy, landing at Milan Malpensa and then taking the train from Milano to Piacenza.  It was here that the cast and crew were based during the three to four months (June to September) that Hornets' Nest was filmed.

There was a very nice young man (Italian, from Piacenza) on the train who helped my husband carry his suitcase down and to the stairs. At the same time there was a nice young man (black African) who helped me carry mine! As soon as we were out of the station, the thing that struck me was the heat. Bright and dry. Heat that seared the skin. It was 33-34 degrees C.

We decided to drag our suitcases from the station to our hotel – it was just 1.1 kilometers according to the map and would take only 16 minutes. We skirted the park that is just beyond the station (sticking to the concrete sidewalk to avoid the gravel paths). We passed a group of people who were speaking one of the Philippine languages – Tagalog or Cebuano, I don’t remember. There was a young woman in very high heels, a very pregnant woman in bicycle shorts, another woman carrying a baby of about one year old, a youngish man about the same height as the women. They looked like they could have come from any town park in that country (my country – I have dual citizenship), in their sun-faded clothing and tank tops.

As we continued dragging the suitcases we were overtaken by a young family, the woman holding a child (perhaps a trio from the group we had earlier seen in the plaza?). Filipino as well. Over the next 24 hours I would note the presence of a good many black Africans, south Asians and a few other Filipinos as well. Residents, not tourists, just going about their business.

We found the Grande Albergo Roma after half an hour. It was on a corner just a narrow street away from the main square, the Piazza del Cavalli. It had a very unprepossessing entrance – glass doors a few steps up, the name on a vertical sign down the side. It could have been the entrance to a little bank. There were modern paintings in primary colors set up in the lobby, and the following morning we took a leisurely breakfast at the seventh floor restaurant, with a well-appointed buffet, everything clean and subdued and very deserving of its four-star ratings.

The man and the woman at the front desk were nice, but neither of them had heard of Hornet’s Nest. They had already arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 10 am on Saturday to take us to Monticello, stay for about an hour, and take us right back. The man was from Piacenza and was a small kid in 1969.  He had never heard of it from anyone. They had to ask when the filming took place, and when I told them that the cast and crew had stayed in this very hotel from July to September 1969, they were surprised but not excited. The film is clearly not part of the legacy or legend of the place (I had been hoping for some evidence, photos of Rock Hudson in the restaurant… but the hotel is too internationally four-stars, too much like a modern airport, for that). When they Googled the name of the film after I had supplied it in Italian (I Lupi attaccano in branco, rather than Il Vespaio, which is no longer used), the cast name that they recognized seemed to be Jacomo Rossi Stewart, who has a small part in the film.

Piacenza does seem like the ordinary industrial town that Dan Keller remembered it as, but there were little pockets of beauty, perhaps the way the sun shone on the red-tiled roofs, or lit up a wall, leaving the sides in blue shadow. There was a view of the back of buildings from our window – just a regular view, but there was some joy in knowing they were the back of the buildings facing the Piazza del Cavalli. I investigated the horse sculptures flanking the piazza that evening, and the following day. It was exciting to see Italian horses on our trip – in actuality and in art. Living in Denmark I have sort of grown accustomed to the presence of horses, but in Italy they are somewhat different -- powerful, contorted, and quite sexy. In Denmark they are utilitarian, heavy and straight – draft horses rather than steeds and mounts. The Danish riders I see don’t gallop, they plod sedately along bridle paths or roadsides. By Monticello there are stables too, less than a kilometer from La Nera. (I didn’t get to look them up, though – there were other things to do). Behind the front desk of the hotel there was a giant rearing image of one of the horses in the Piazza del Cavalli. We tried the horse burgers at a little café the following day, so I got my equine fix, all right.

We stayed in a regular room on the fifth floor, where there were two suites, named after Italian composers. On the floor above was the biggest suite in the hotel. Looking at the pictures I sent via email, Dan confirmed that the Albergo Roma has been renovated since most of the cast and crew of Hornet’s Nest stayed here 1969 – it was smaller and cozier, less (he agreed) like a modern airport. Back in the day it was still called the Albergo Roma.  I learned from him that the film’s two stars, Rock Hudson and Silva Koscina, lived in fancy rented houses the duration of the shoot.  

My husband and I didn’t wander so far from the hotel, having a light dinner of pasta at a café, sitting outdoors, off the Piazza del Cavalli. The piazza was virtually deserted, even if it was a Friday night. Maybe it was too early, though we sat there from around 7:30 to nearly 9 pm. Opposite us was an arcade that seemed ancient, where a younger clientele had gathered, eating Italian chips (I don’t know what they are called but they are served in a basket) and nursing drinks, though it was, by Danish standards, the dinner hour. There were no vespas. I had read somewhere that they were banned in the old centers of Italy fairly recently … I’m not sure if that is correct, though. So although vespas figure heavily in keychains and magnets, they were very nearly absent to the ordinary tourist’s eye. In their place were the equally hazardous delivery riders on all-too swift, heavy-tired bicycles, with their cumbersome boxes. I exaggerate (as happens when you blithely cross a cobble-stoned path and are nearly mown down by one – this happened to me a few days later in Verona). But there were a lot more bicycles than Vespas overall, and I noticed little children mounted on handlebars as their fathers pumped away.

And somehow what we saw seemed to be the cleaner, older, more rarefied model for life in small-town Philippines. Not so weird when you consider how Philippine towns were originally laid out along the lines of Spanish towns, back in the 19^th century or so, and the configuration has not changed all these years, and resembles the layout of Italian "towns" to some extent, with a Catholic church, a municipal building and a school around a central square (piazza or plaza); there may be other, smaller squares or a landscaped green park as well. The difference is, among others, in the building materials and the facades.

I took photos of the square by night, too. I reasoned that the young boys in the cast must have done a lot of exploring on their own, after filming was done for the day. I was thinking of how it must have been all those years ago -- did they ride vespas too? Some of the older boys would have been the right age. Some might have had girlfriends by then, left behind in Rome or Naples. I didn’t see any young people at all around the square – only tourists or Italians about 25-years old and up. Where do the teenagers, the courting couples, hang out today? Or am I so ancient and unsophisticated I still believe “courting couples” are a thing? They must all be on their phones.

There would have been a lot of smoking going on back in 1969 – that is evident in the film. Drinking too? Was there a chaperone, sort of like a camp counsellor, to make sure everyone behaved? (Today, we would say “for the safety of the children.”) Their parents might have come up, pair by pair, to see how they were doing, just as Dan’s parents did, paid for by the production. Translators? How did the boys communicate with each other? I get the notion that towards the end of filming, the boys from Naples began to hang around each other, while the boys from Rome or with an English-speaking background, formed another group. I don’t think the directors told them (in group shots) where to stand, and I see these two groupings in both the behind-the-scenes pictures and in the film itself.  It’s very natural behavior.  (Which Dan confirmed too – that they “self-segregated” according to language and other commonalities).

 The following day we took the taxi we had booked, heading southwest to La Nera in Monticello – and what a breath-taking experience that was. More to follow. More pictures below.

 

A trip to the Hornet's Nest filming locations

Castello di Monticello, my own watercolor

PLANS, plans, plans. I'm going to northern Italy, to visit some of the locations where Hornets’ Nest/Il Vespaio/I lupi attaccano in branco  was filmed.

I have booked a night at the Grande Albergo Roma in Piacenza. It's the four-star hotel where the cast and crew were billeted during the filming, which took place from July to early September 1969. 

The plan is to hire a car that will head southwest to Monticello commune, specifically to a group of centuries-old buildings (houses, a pond and a chapel), where the Reanoto scenes were filmed. 

I suppose you might wonder why, having found the place on Google Streetview and getting some good screenshots of it (as well as stumbling upon photos uploaded by various folks on the net, for the sake of the beauty of the place and totally independent of its having been a film location: the movie is largely forgotten today) I still have this insane need to visit the site for myself.

The same reason I’m staying a night at the Grande Albergo Roma and another night at a hotel in Salsomaggiore Terme, so that I can devote the better part of the following day in the vicinity of the Torrente Stirone. I want to walk in the footsteps of the film crew 55 years ago, to be “where it all began.”

I don’t know whether this is an act of destruction (end of the magic!) or of analysis, of finding or of letting go. Maybe all of these.

I have Daniel Keller (Tekko) to thank for the filming location of that crucial scene in the middle of the movie, where Aldo (Mark Colleano) and his gang bargain with Capt. Turner (Rock Hudson) to exact revenge on the Nazis occupying their village of Reanoto. I know that for many people Hornet’s Nest is just another war flick, and a pretty bad one at that, but I can’t help interpreting it as a coming-of-age film. The boys who played the members of the gang were mostly between the ages of 14 and 15. Those scenes by the side of the creek (irrigation ditch in the novelization; the Torrente Stirone in reality) dramatize the moment when young people realize that, in actuality, they are agents and actors as crucial to the outcome of a mission as any adult. It’s the moment that Aldo and his gang assert their agency. 

The summer I saw the movie, I was 11, and also beginning, in increments, to assert myself and think independently of my over-protective parents. Through those experimental excursions (or incursions, actually) into the world of fantasy, where they could not follow me, I carried my rebellion out. It wasn’t the first time I had written stories about people in books or films, nor the first time I had incorporated myself and others from my reality into these stories. The difference was that I was inventing stuff about a film that amused my father but repulsed my mother. Everything about Hornet’s Nest was wrong in her book – the violence, the molestation of the doctor (and subsequent violation and chastisement by the Rock Hudson character!), the children bearing weapons, the death of two of the young characters. It didn’t matter that the anti-war message was plain to see by the end.  My mother detested that movie.

I say “I” but I mean “we” – because my sister was my co-author, co-artist and co-conspirator.

The film culminated in the demolition of the “Dela Norte dam” – with the Diga di Mignano near Lugagnano Val d’Arda representing that massive concrete structure. Although it would have been possible to visit, or just look at, Diga di Mignano from the surrounding hills, I decided to leave it out of the itinerary. Possibly because as a child I’d always been more interested in the boys (especially the smaller ones, as well as brave, doomed Silvio who at the time was the most romantically handsome young man I had ever seen) than in Turner’s mission. For them, the breathtakingly violent raid on Reanoto (oh, the enthusiasm with which they greeted the destruction of their own village!) was the climax – the fulfillment of revenge.  

The hamlet in Monticello  is mentioned by several sources online, as is the Castello di Rivalta. The banks of the Torrente Stirone I only know from the location at the top of a call sheet that Dan Keller, or his parents, preserved. I was very lucky to find this on his website.

There is one other filming location that I wish I could visit, but sadly, I have absolutely no idea where it is. It is a cluster of buildings, with a low wall, a flagpole, a square tower and a belfry, that represents another village, where the benevolent Captain von Hecht (Sergio Fantoni) has set up his headquarters. At first I thought this was the Borgo di Rivalta/ Castello di Rivalta southeast of the city of Piacenza, another location associated with the film, but after studying various scenes from the movie, I concluded it was not. Neither is it the hamlet in Monticello (the back buildings, that is).  It is apparently a small village set in a valley (as one can see houses on a ridge at one point, and the diagonal line of mountains in another scene).  The only way I’ll be able to find it is to gain possession of a name -- a clue, the key.

The adults who were connected to the production have no doubt passed away. There will be others who might hold the key, though. The boys. All 15 were at this location. Some of them are on Facebook, actually, the Italians as well as the English speakers, but I haven’t had the nerve to approach them all. 

But I am overthinking things again, as usual. The truth is, I am still at home, and will be here for some time. But I will post about my quest and my journey, when, hopefully, all is behind me. Wish me luck.