The priest Hugh O'Flaherty (Gregory Peck) turns into the rescuer of the persecuted by Nazis. The Monsignore clandestinely within the shield of the Vatican's diplomatic immunity to shelter allied military from the Gestapo Chief Herbert Kappler (Christopher Plummer) . Then O'Flaherty masquerades as nun, seller, or Nazi officer in order to outwit the German plans in occupied Rome. At the ending the scene where bad guy , Plummer, and good priest ,Peck, finally confront each other is a high point.
This story is inspired on actual facts and based on the nonfiction novel titled ¨The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican¨ by J.P.Gallaher. This interesting story drags in some place but is well realized and contains good cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno and excellent musical score by Ennio Morricone. It's a lavish production by Bill McCutchen , an ITC-RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana Co-production for world distribution, well filmed by Jerry London entirely on location in Rome.
The real events are the following : In the early years of World War II, O'Flaherty (Gregory Peck)toured prisoner of war camps in Italy and tried to find out about prisoners who had been reported missing in action.When Italy changed sides in 1943, thousands of British POWs were released. Some of them (John Terry), remembering visits by O'Flaherty , reached Rome and asked him for help. O'Flaherty did not wait for permission from his superiors. He recruited the help of other priests (Raf Vallone, Angelo Infanti), and a Swiss count (Vernon Dobtcheff). He also kept contact with Sir D'Arcy Osborne (Peter Burton), British Ambassador to the Vatican. O'Flaherty and his allies concealed 4,000 escapees − Allied soldiers and Jews − in flats, farms and convents. One of the hideouts was beside the local SS headquarters. O'Flaherty coordinated all this and when he was visiting outside the Vatican, he wore various disguises.The German occupiers of Rome commanded by Col. Herbert Kappler (Christopher Plummer) under orders of Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler (T. P. McKenna) tried to stop him and eventually they found out that the leader of the network was a priest.His efforts put him at odds with the Pope Pius XII (John Gielgud) and SS attempts to assassinate him failed. They found out his identity, but could not arrest him inside the Vatican. When the German ambassador revealed this to O'Flaherty, he began to meet his contacts on the stairs of the St. Peter's Basilica.Several others, including priests, nuns and lay people, worked in secret with Msgr. O'Flaherty, and even hid refugees in their own private homes around Rome. Another person who contributed significantly to this operation was the Malta-born widow Chetta Chevalier (Olga Karlatos), who hid some refugees in her house with her sons (Fabiana Udenio), and was lucky to escape detection. When the Allies arrived in Rome in June 1944, 3,925 of the escapees were still alive. O'Flaherty demanded that German prisoners be treated properly as well. He took a plane to South Africa to meet Italian POWs and to Jerusalem to visit Jewish refugees. Of the 9,700 Jews in Rome, 1,007 had been shipped to Auschwitz. The rest were hidden, 5,000 of them by the official Church − 3,000 in Castel Gandolfo, 200 or 400 as "members" of the Palatine Guard and some 1,500 in monasteries, convents and colleges. The remaining 3,700 were hidden in private homes. After liberation Monsignor O'Flaherty was honored by Italy, Canada and Australia given the US medal of Freedom and made a Commander of the British Empire. Herbert Kappler was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes. In the long years that followed in his Italian prison, Kappler had only one visitor. Every month, year in and year out, O'Flaherty came to see him. In 1959, the former head of the dreaded Gestapo in Rome was baptized into the Catholic faith at the hand of the Irish priest.
