10. Action boys and English boys

 

THE THREE young actors Daniel Keller, Daniel Dempsey and Joseph Cassuto -- plus a fourth, the slender boy in a white shirt – form a group I think of as the “English boys”.  They are native English or bilingual Italian-English speakers who, from the anonymity of the “chorus”, help to drive the plot and to supply important information (such as the presence of enemy trucks or the location of the transmitter in Capt. Von Hecht’s office), which would be pointless to dramatize.  They “tell” rather than “show” – the opposite, incidentally, of the prose writer’s mandate. They support the main characters by questioning or reacting to them.  Tekko, Giorgio and Franco were prominent in the novelization and early drafts of the screenplay, and Keller, Dempsey and Cassuto were included in the list of main cast members accompanying the New York Times review of the film.  The four “English boys” don’t speak more than a handful of lines collectively, but the story would progress very differently without their parts in the dialogue. 

They do not speak with the shrill voices of childhood nor with the rumble of adolescence.  They are in between.  In the scenes where the boys chatter excitedly in English, it’s interesting that it’s higher voices rather than lower ones that are heard -- in keeping with the intention of the original script that the orphans would be ages 8 to 12.  

Indeed it seems that there are really only two or three voices blurring together to represent the rest.  There’s no real dialogue to this chatter but just single lines (“He’s gonna blow up the dam!”) excited cries and laughter and, once, tantalizingly, a few words spoken in an Italian intonation but too faint to make out.  The sound they make reminds me of the hubbub of crowd scenes – brusio, Dan Keller said they were called.  He added his voice to a few of them in his time as a child dubber in Rome.  I wonder, actually, if that isn’t just young Dan in the recording studio, being layered and layered over himself. 

Despite Hornet’s Nest being a movie set in Italy with actors that sound and look Italian (even the German soldiers), there is no Italian dialogue.  A stray “Bellissima!” does not count. The actual Italians among the boys are silent.  Two of the older ones do get to speak in English, though they still sound as if they’re speaking Italian, which to me is quite charming.  

Was it unfair that most of the Italian cast were seen but not heard?  I don’t think so. They get to act with their bodies, and Hornet’s Nest would not be the adventure fantasy that it is without them.  I think of them as the “action boys.” They get to scramble up trees and handle plastique and fire guns from rooftops, spent casings flying about their ears. Several were from Naples and could swim and had movie-making experience. Three were professional circus performers.☺

A mixed bag: British, American and Italian actors

Text © 2023 by Lakambini Sitoy

Screenshot from Hornet's Nest (1970), United Artists featuring characters Arturo, Luigi and Paolo.

B&W photo by Claudio Patriarca. Thanks to Dan Keller.

Earlier: Why Hornet's Nest? Why only now?

Soon: Valerio Colombaioni

9. Joseph Cassuto was Franco

 

FRANCO is the first boy you see in the trailer, clad in a grimy white shirt and red shorts, dashing to the mouth of the cave to let Dino know that Aldo has arrived with the dottore. In the scene where the boys rescue Turner, he is the one who suggests to Aldo that the American may not want to help them in their revenge. (“Maybe he’ll say no, Aldo. Maybe he won’t want to.”) In the scene in the cave where the boys reveal the stash of weapons they keep in the niche, he’s the one on the right, picking up and passing the Schmeissers to the others. 

Dino names him as one of the boys whose father built the dam. He’s on the driver’s side of the truck as it barrels through Reanoto, by the tailgate.  He’s among the six who distract the German guards atop the dam by yelling and making provocative gestures, and appears to be the one who does a somersault in the water. He's a bit on the hyperactive side, leaping across the screen to help pin down Bianca and punching Aldo vigorously (and vertically). He resembles Carlo at first glance, but is bigger.

In the scenes where the group of boys mingle seemingly randomly, Franco can often be found next to Giorgio, Tekko and/or Tonio.

In the based-on-the-screenplay book by Michael Avallone, Franco is one of five demolition-team swimmers.

Cassuto, called Joseph in the New York Times review of the film but Giuseppe in the credits, was  likely the boy from Israel referred to in a 1969 article in The Forum, the student newspaper of Notre Dame International School in Rome. He lives in Israel today. 

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To come: The "action boys"

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