Many in this far-ranging cast will be familiar to viewers. The 25th Hour was a Yugoslavian-French-Italian production, based on a highly regarded 1950 Romanian novel adapted by French and British writers, directed by a Frenchman, produced by Italian Carlo Ponti and featuring a cast of actors from Italy, Switzerland, England, Ireland, France, Czechoslovakia, Canada and, in Quinn's case, Mexico. As early as 1953, he began working in Italy, and for the rest of his life he continued to move between the U.S.
In fact, much of his later career was sustained as an international actor. Whether through wisdom or good fortune, Quinn - who had played almost every conceivable ethnicity - was perfectly positioned to take advantage of this development. As the Hollywood studio system went into decline and the majors moved more toward distribution than production, a new trend emerged: the multi-company, multi-national co-production. Moritz is played by Anthony Quinn with echoes of both his robust peasant character in Zorba the Greek (1964) and his dim-witted strongman in Fellini's La Strada (1954).
#25th hour trial
Imprisoned after the war, he is severely beaten by his Russian captors, then put on trial by Allied forces because of his work for the Nazis. Falsely sent to a work camp by a local police captain who lusts after his gorgeous wife, Johann Moritz is first erroneously tagged as a Jew, then "rescued" by a Nazi officer who determines Moritz is a perfect Aryan specimen and forces him into service as a model for German propaganda. Not to be confused with the 2002 Spike Lee film of the same name, The 25th Hour (1967) follows the tribulations of a simple Romanian peasant during and after World War II. After an 8-year separation, Johann is reunited with his family. However, a letter from Suzanna explaining her endless attempts to secure Johann's release, her rape by Russian soldiers, and the subsequent birth of an illegitimate child, so deeply moves the court that Johann is freed. After the war he is brought to trial at Nuremberg, where he is shown little leniency by the prosecuting officer. Eventually, he is captured and, ironically, selected by a Nazi colonel as the perfect example of "racially pure German stock." He is inducted into the SS and is forced to pose for photographs used on the covers of magazines circulated throughout occupied Europe. Eighteen months later Johann escapes from the labor camp to Hungary, but Jewish refugee organizations refuse to help him because he insists that he is not a Jew. Suzanna successfully wards off Dobresco's advances, but later she is forced to divorce Johann in order to save their home from being confiscated as Jewish property. The man responsible for the deportation is Nicolai Dobresco, a district police officer who covets Johann's wife, Suzanna. At the time of the German invasion of Romania in 1939 Johann Moritz, a simple peasant, is falsely branded as a Jew and sent to a German labor camp.
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