Upcoming film about Salvatore Todaro

[Frollo]

I have recently found out that a movie about Salvatore Todaro is in the making:

Comandante

Comandante - Un film di Edoardo De Angelis. Drammatico, Italia, 2023. De Angelis rivendica con ambizione e coraggio il soccorso come valore fondante dell'identità italiana.

www.mymovies.it

Comandante - 2023 - film usciti 2000 - 2023 - film & docu - Filmitalia

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Film sui sommergibili: Favino sul set a mar Piccolo per le riprese sulla vita del capitano Todaro

Ciak a Taranto per il film sui sommergibili: Pierfrancesco Favino sul set a mar Piccolo per le riprese sulla vita del capitano Todaro. Battelli sommergibili nelle vecchie definizioni o...

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It will feature Pierfrancesco Favino as Todaro. During his career, Favino already starred in other WW2 films - as a sergeant of the "Pavia" Division in El Alamein (2002) and as a partisan leader in Miracle at St. Anna (2008). The Italian Navy will provide help in the making of the film, rumor has it that a 1:1 model of Comandante Cappellini, Todaro's submarine, is being built at the Arsenale of Taranto.

I am quite looking forward to seeing this movie, which is supposed to come out next year. Todaro's life and deeds are definitely movie material - if done properly this could be an excellent film on a theme (both the Italian participation in the battle of the Atlantic and Todaro's exploits) that is very little known to the wider public.

 

[DrG]

Already in 1954 Duilio Coletti directed the movie "La grande speranza" which, even though didn't make an explicit reference to commander Todaro and the Cappellini submarine, was based upon these historical facts. Honestly, with all the interesting events which involved the Regia Marina in WW2, I don't feel the need of a second movie about the same one.

 

[Frollo]

I strongly disagree. Nobody ever watches 1950s films except the most famous ones, and I'd be surprised if 1 % of the current Italian public has ever seen La grande speranza during their lives. It's like saying that Letters from Iwo Jima or Flags of Our Fathers were redundant because there were already 1950s movies on that battle.

 

[DrG]

Frollo, as the Latins said "quot homines, tot sententiae". Anyway, I assume that the handful of people who still has an interest in WW2 (I guess you have noticed that this forum is less vivacious than a graveyard, but also more known WW2 forums are slowly dying out, probably because the last generation hasn't known WW2 not even through their grandparents, who were born in the 1940's or later) has the minumum of culture not only to know the existance of the handful of movies about Italy in WW2, but also to enjoy their watching even though they are not recent. With the current desperate crisis of Italian cinema, I would not be so sure that the new movie will be watched more than "La grande speranza", which at least is free on Youtube, albeit in low quality.

The two great US movies that you mention, moreover, were filmed almost two decades ago (2006), i.e. more or less at the same time of "El Alamein, la linea del fuoco" (2002) which, in practice, has been the last Italian WW2 movie that can be regarded as such. Those that followed were almost only based upon the most sickening rethorics of victimism, whining, sobbing, complaining... Unbearable stories of civilian victims and little more.

And now what we get? The umpteenth movie about a Regia Marina submarine. Every single movie about the Italian Navy filmed after WW2 (and two during it: the masterpieces "Uomini sul fondo" and "Alfa Tau") was about a submarine or the X MAS (which, after all, was linked to subs too). This time with the addition of the whining about the barbarity of war but the Christian Italian hero refuses to leave his enemies to their cruel fate, etc. etc. etc. Todaro exposed his crew and his submarine (which wasn't his own ship, but of the State) to extreme dangers: he had to regard himself as lucky for the fact that, after some other attacks made on surface instead of using torpedoes, he was only relieved from the command of a submarine and sent first to a command on land and then to command a fishing boat. But, of course, his story is perfect for the rhetoric of the wet eye, for people ready to weep and to believe that Italian soldiers spend their time saving their enemies and, if ever they kill them, it is by a mere accident...

PS While I highly enjoyed both Eastwood's masterpieces about Iwo Jima I could not refrain to notice that the Japanese version was about a coward soldier: maybe it would have been too much for an American to make a movie about a normal, if not an heroic, Japanese enemy.

 

[Frollo]

Jesus Christ, you are actually saying that Todaro was an idiot for helping out survivors. And completely manipulating his subsequent history to fit your misguided judgment - the man was not relieved from command, as you'd know if you spent more time actually researching what you say. He kept command of Cappellini for a further four Atlantic patrols and was appreciated by Donitz for his aggressiveness, even though the Grossadmiral joked that perhaps he should command a gunboat rather than a submarine, given his penchant for attacking his targets with his deck gun. He only left the command of Cappellini due to deteriorating health conditions (old spinal injury he had suffered in a floatplane accident in 1933) and was then assigned, not to a random "land unit", but to none less than the X MAS, the most renowned unit of the Regia Marina. And your "fishing boat", as you ought to know, was a mothership for assault craft... Aldo Cocchia (do you know who he was?) wrote in his memoirs, talking of his death: "Death had to take him asleep - had he been awake, it would not have been so easy". During his career he was awarded a grand total of three Silver and two Bronze Medals of Military Valor, not to mention the posthumous Gold Medal. I am so sorry this war hero did not do his best to make Italians look like bloodthirsty brutes as you would like - I suppose he should have machine gunned the survivors like the "heroic" Japanese did on multiple instances. For myself, I'll be glad to see his actions made more known.

 

[DrG]

There is no need to use the Lord's name in vain.

I have never said that Todaro was an idiot and I think he was a hero, but he was not a good submarine commander, because he had, first and foremost, the duty to follow his superiors' orders and to spare the lifes of his crew and to keep in good efficiency his submarine. Tasks to which he did not comply, not only in the case of the Kabalo, but also in his habit of making surface attacks with guns (the duel with the Shakespeare lasted 4 hours and caused casualties and damages to the Cappellini) instead of using torpedoes. His crewmembers were wounded and even killed due to his decisions. A chivalric gesture is, by definition, an individual one: a knight risked his own life, horse and armor, not also the lives of his men and a State property (i.e. the submarine).
That a submarine commander was sent to command a fishing boat, even though used for dangerous missions for the X MAS, was surely not a prize, but the acknowledgment that he was not suited for a submarine command.

Also Aldo Cocchia's "The Hunter and the Hunted", while apologetic, could not avoid to remark that Todaro was also criticized: "This episode [the Kabalo] brought Todaro a severe reprimand when he got back to Bordeaux. From the operational point of view it was richly deserved. But one would not be sorry to see more people earn reprimands of this kind, in peace as well as in war; it would strengthen one’s confidence in the human race. Even at the time, Todaro had supporters as well as critics."

During WW2 some thousands of naval officers commanded submarines in Allied and Axis Navies: if Todaro was the exception, there must have been reason...

Of course, I despise criminals actively killing unarmed people. I hope you do the same, not only with the Japanese, but also with the Americans who killed survivors, like the Wahoo on 26 Jan. 1943.

I keep my opinion that, with the dozens of interesting actions involving the Italian Navy in WW2 there is no need of making another movie about a man who had already this honor once, while much better officers and stories have never been portraried on screen.

 

[Frollo]

but he was not a good submarine commander, because he had, first and foremost, the duty to follow his superiors' orders and to spare the lifes of his crew and to keep in good efficiency his submarine. Tasks to which he did not comply, not only in the case of the Kabalo, but also in his habit of making surface attacks with guns (the duel with the Shakespeare lasted 4 hours and caused casualties and damages to the Cappellini) instead of using torpedoes. His crewmembers were wounded and even killed due to his decisions. A chivalric gesture is, by definition, an individual one: a knight risked his own life, horse and armor, not also the lives of his men and a State property (i.e. the submarine).

Yet Parona, an admiral known for his severity and an implacable critic of commanders who failed him (see the Mellina affair), thought he was suited enough for his role that he left him in command for another four patrols. Todaro was far from being the only Italian submarine commander that carried out attacks with the deck gun early in the war (see Bagnolini vs Northern Pride, Mocenigo vs Sarastone, Faà di Bruno vs Auris and Melrose Abbey, Marcello vs Thelma, etc; nor was he the only one that lost men in doing so, see the aforementioned Marcello, Mocenigo...) – and this was not really due to chivalry but to mistrust of faulty torpedoes. He did sink his ships, and in fact in terms of tonnage sunk he did better than most other Betasom commanders.

That a submarine commander was sent to command a fishing boat, even though used for dangerous missions for the X MAS, was surely not a prize, but the acknowledgment that he was not suited for a submarine command.

No, it was the acknowledgment that he was no longer *physically* suited for the hardships of a submarine command, especially one in the Atlantic. And once again, he did not command a “fishing boat”, he commanded the surface assault unit of the X MAS, and personally planned and directed the operation against Bone. It’s like saying that Vittorio Moccagatta commanded a MAS.

During WW2 some thousands of naval officers commanded submarines in Allied and Axis Navies: if Todaro was the exception, there must have been reason...

I am with Cocchia on this.

Of course, I despise criminals actively killing unarmed people. I hope you do the same, not only with the Japanese, but also with the Americans who killed survivors, like the Wahoo on 26 Jan. 1943.

Or Torbay’s Miers. Of course.