Celebrated producer/director Stanley Kramer (Guess Who's Coming to Dinner; Judgment at Nuremberg; It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) blends charm, suspense and romance in William Rose and Ben Maddow's screen adaptation of Robert Crichton's best-selling comic tale of a small Italian village and its attempt to hide a million bottles of wine from the Nazis.

In a performance infused with the same bravado and humanity as his Zorba the Greek, Anthony Quinn plays Italo Bombolini, a wine-sodden buffoon who becomes the town's mayor, its inspiration and, ultimately, its hero. And who better to portray his flashing-eyed and fiery-tongued wife than Anna Magnani (The Rose Tattoo)? No less excellent is Hardy Kruger's characterization of a German officer obsessed by honor and consumed by duty. And Giancarlo Giannini - later to achieve international stardom in Lina Wertmuller's films Swept Away and Seven Beauties - is outstanding as an impassioned young villager.