Hornets’ Nest

Hornets’ Nest
Original American film poster
Directed by	Phil Karlson Franco Cirino
Produced by	Stanley S. Canter
Written by	Stanley Colbert (story) S.S. Schweitzer
Starring	Rock Hudson Mark Colleano Sylva Koscina Sergio Fantoni Giacomo Rossi-Stuart Jacques Sernas
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	Gábor Pogány
Edited by	J. Terry Williams
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	September 9, 1970
Running time	110 minutes
Country	USA Italy
Language	English German Italian

Hornets’ Nest is a 1970 Italian-American war film directed by Phil Karlson and starring Rock Hudson, Sylva Koscina, and Sergio Fantoni.

In Northern Italy in 1944, the entire population of the village of Reanoto is massacred by the SS under the command of the cruel Sturmbannführer Taussig (Jacques Sernas) for helping the Italian resistance movement. The only survivors are a group of young boys in ages from 7 to 14 led by Aldo (Mark Colleano, son of Bonar Colleano and Susan Shaw) who witness the mass execution and vow revenge.

That night, a detachment of US Army paratrooper saboteurs jump into the area with a mission to destroy a strategic dam with the partisans prior to the Fifth United States Army's advance into the area. Their drop zone has been discovered by Wehrmacht troops under the command of Hauptmann Friedrich von Hecht (Sergio Fantoni), who kill them all except the leader of the paratroopers, Captain Turner (Rock Hudson), who is rendered unconscious and goes unnoticed by the Germans when he lands in the branches of a tree. The Germans capture the demolition equipment from the dead Americans.