The Scarlet and the Black (1983) on Netflix
In 1943 Rome, Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty hides escaped Allied prisoners and Jews, and SS Colonel Herbert Kappler wants him stopped. The priest's Vatican post keeps him beyond Kappler's reach.
- Netflix3.9/5
- IMDb7.5/104,451 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Trailer
Plot summary
German troops occupy Rome in September 1943, and Pope Pius XII receives assurances from SS-General Max Helm that Vatican neutrality will be respected. Colonel Herbert Kappler, the SS police chief in the city, fears escaped Allied prisoners will seek refuge inside the Vatican and asks to mark its boundary with a white line. Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, an Irish-born Vatican priest, organizes safe havens and escape routes for escaped prisoners of war, Jews and refugees, aided by Romans such as the widow Francesca Lombardo and her daughters and by clergy and diplomats. O'Flaherty works in disguises, and Kappler cannot arrest him while he remains on Vatican ground.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Scarlet and the Black (1983)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Kappler was transferred to a prison hospital because of poor health, and from there he was smuggled out in a suitcase by his wife in 1977, weighing less than 105 pounds at the time; he escaped to West Germany, where he died at age 70 in 1978.- CBS distributed more than 500,000 copies of the film's script to elementary and high schools across the country so it could be read aloud in class to spark student interest in English and history.
- The villain General Max Helm was based on real SS commander Karl Wolff, but the filmmakers could not use his actual name because Wolff was still alive during production; he died the following year, in 1984.
SPOILER
Kappler was sentenced to life imprisonment and his only visitor was O'Flaherty, who came every month; eventually the former SS officer converted to the Catholic faith, and the monsignor baptized him in 1959.- Christopher Plummer was 53 years old when he played SS security chief Herbert Kappler in the film, even though the real Kappler was only 36 when he actually held that post in wartime Rome.
- The film dramatizes the real Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, an Irish-born Vatican priest credited with saving 6,500 Jews and Allied prisoners of war in Nazi-occupied Rome.
