"The Children of Alda Nuova" was adapted by Robert Wallsten from his short story of the same title that had been published first in the August 1961 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. The episode aired on NBC on Tuesday, June 5, 1962.
Robert Wallsten (1912-2005) acted on Broadway from 1933 to 1942 and wrote a play in 1941 before serving in the Navy in WWII. He wrote short stories from 1944 to 1963 and, in 1950, he began writing for TV. The short story, "The Children of Alda Nuova," was nominated for an Edgar Award, and his teleplay adapting it for the small screen was his last TV credit. Wallsten was friends with John Steinbeck and edited the Steinbeck collection, A Life in Letters, the book for which he is best remembered today. His papers are at the University of California Santa Barbara Library.
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| "The Children of Alda Nuova" was first published here |
As the short story begins, a man named Frankie Filippo is driving a Fiat that he rented under an assumed name through the Pontine Marshes not far from Rome, Italy, in the hot August sun. He has been avoiding crowds and tourists for fear of being recognized by an American who has seen his photograph. A week ago, at a cafe in Rome, Frankie struck up a conversation with Ainsley Crowder, who "knew Rome like a book...history, art, archaeology, the works." Crowder wrote down a list of places to visit, including Alda Antica, "'a ruin, abandoned nearly a hundred years before Christ,'" that is located near the more modern village of Alda Nuova. Crowder described the villagers as "'mountain people, a race apart--inbred, undernourished, desperately poor.'"
Frankie drives into the village and sees squalor unlike any he has seen before. A young boy named Paolo approaches his car and offers to be his guide; more boys quickly surround the vehicle and Frankie agrees to drive Paolo and two others to explore the ruins. He drives out of the village until they reach an old stone wall. Soon, more than a dozen other boys and a man arrive on foot; the man, Cesare, will stand guard by the car and Frankie thinks that he resembles a boy he had badly beaten in his youth.
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| Jack Carson as Frankie |
Uncomfortable with "the undecipherable malignity of the place," the American follows Paolo through the "great gate" and into the ruins. Paolo points out what is left of the ancient temples and, when Frankie pats the boy's shoulder, he realizes that the boys are older than they seem: they are 14 or 15 years old but small for their age due to malnourishment. The criminal has been on the run for less than two months and the boys observe his "New York suit, his monogrammed shirt, his amethyst cuff links, the diamond in his ring."
Frankie sees a stone ring surrounding the entrance to a small tunnel in the ground and Paolo explains that five ancient tunnels run through the middle of the mountain and come out at its base. He explains that they were built "'to dispose of enemies,'" and the boy "made a comic gesture describing it." Another boy, Giulio, leads Frankie to the edge of the ruins, where he sees that there is a sharp drop down to the valley below. Frankie accidentally drops a pack of cigarettes and, as the boys scramble to pick them up, he heads back to his car.
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| Thano Rama as Paolo |
Paolo and the other boys begin to ask for money. As Frankie approaches the car, he steps down hard on the nearest boy's foot before taking a switchblade from his pocket and stabbing Cesare in the stomach. The boys attack Frankie, driving him back through the gate and into the ruins, taking his knife and encircling him. Fearfully, he offers them money, tossing bills into the air and calling for help, as the circle of boys around him shrinks.
Three weeks later, a police officer named Sinai arrives in Alda Nuova with Ainsley Crowder, having followed clues along the trail of the missing Frankie Filippo. The townsfolk claim ignorance and the visitors approach the ruins with the boys as their guides. Sinai notices boys wearing new items of clothing but they explain it all away. Crowder quietly points out the charred remains of a Fiat lying at the bottom of the mountain and Sinai cautions silence. Back in the village, Crowder notices Frankie's jewelry adorning two local women. He and Sinai leave together and Sinai reveals the nature of the crimes that made Frankie flee the U.S.: "'He was the chief of a group that sold narcotics to...High school children.'"
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| Christopher Dark as Ainsley Crowder |
"The Children of Alda Nuova" is a powerful, well-written story that vividly evokes a place where ancient justice is meted out by disadvantaged boys. The author makes it clear that Frankie Filippo is a wanted criminal on the run who has left the U.S. and fled to Italy; his crimes were notable enough that he fears recognition by tourists who would have seen his photo in American newspapers. The final lines reveal the exact nature of his offenses and imply that his fate at the hands of poor village boys is poetic justice. But should the boys be celebrated as heroes for killing Frankie and later denying knowledge of his existence? The fact that he stabbed one of their own is used to justify their violent act, since they had no knowledge of his criminal past. Not heroes, no--more like victims who enact a rough justice that is all they have ever known.
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| Stefan Schnabel as Sinai |
The TV version of the story lacks some of the background that is provided in the short story, relying on dialogue and visuals to fill in the blanks. It follows the story closely, for the most part, with a few small changes made necessary by casting choices and censorship. The flashback structure that starts the story is eliminated and, instead, the TV show starts at the cafe in Rome where Frankie Fane, as the character has been renamed, meets Ainsley Crowder. Light music helps to establish a comedic tone when a waiter brings the wrong drink to Fane, who neither speaks nor understands Italian; this incident lulls the viewer into expecting a light tone throughout the episode.
Crowder clears up the misunderstanding between the waiter and Fane, who is happy to meet a fellow American. Ainsley compliments Frankie's gold cigarette lighter, which bears his initials; there is a close up of the item, which will be seen again later. Fane's personality quickly turns menacing when he overreacts to a benign comment made by Crowder; this suggests that the initial tone may not last.
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| Lidia Vana |
The scene dissolves to a shot of Frankie driving through the countryside not in a Fiat, as in the short story, but in a big, American convertible that he somehow managed to rent. A shot of a small statute of the Virgin Mary mounted on a pedestal at the roadside suggests that the local residents are old-fashioned and religious, though their later behavior is far from holy. Another dissolve shows Fane arriving in the village square at Alda Nuova, where his sunglasses and convertible stand in stark contrast to the villagers, who include a man walking alongside a donkey cart and a woman in black emerging from a chapel.
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| David Fresco |
Fane tosses a cigarette out of the car and it lands in the dirt. At first, this is an image of his disrespect for the old village, but when Paolo, depicted as a young man with dirt on his face, picks it up and eagerly begins to smoke it, it is apparent that even Frankie's trash has value in Alda Nuova. Paolo and the other young people quickly surround the car and all are filthy, but unlike the story, there are two young women in the group. Fane wants to leave the village immediately, remarking "'Ever hear of a hunch?'" but when Paolo asks if he is afraid, Frankie agrees to drive three young people to the ruins. This challenge to his manhood is not in the short story and causes him to abandon his sensible hunch and make a fatal choice. The camera pans past the chapel and across the village to show Frankie's car winding up the road toward the ruins.
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| Carlo Tricoli |
After the commercial break, the shot fades in on Frankie at the ruins, his flashy suit and two-tone shoes contrasting with the rags worn by Paolo and the other young people, who arrive quickly. Paolo introduces Cesare, who is clearly disabled, and sends him off to watch Frankie's car; the young people speak to each other in Italian, which is not translated for the viewer, who shares Frankie's discomfort at the inability to understand them. The ruins are much smaller than what is described in the story. Paolo shows Frankie the tunnel and drops a rock in it to show that it seems bottomless. The short story's "comic gesture" by which Paolo describes how enemies were disposed of is expanded in the TV show into a pantomime battle by Paolo, who is observed by the others, their faces shown in ominous close up. In the space of a few minutes, the tone of the show has changed significantly from light to menacing.
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| Christy Cummins as Gina |
Frankie is led to the edge of the cliff and the young people grab the pack of cigarettes from his hand. He heads for his car but is stopped when they demand money; all of this takes place in a tight space. By his car, instead of stabbing Cesare, as he does in the short story, Frankie punches the young man and throws him to the ground, where he lies, knocked out and bleeding. Paolo takes the keys from the car's ignition and Frankie begins to throw money at the young people, their faces dark and the music foreboding. After he tosses them his cigarette lighter (recall the focus on this item in the show's opening scene) and his watch, the American visitor to Italy disappears behind the crowd as they attack him.
There is a fade out and then a fade in on a scene at Sinai's office, where he interviews Crowder, who agrees to join him to follow Fane's trail. There is a dissolve to the small, European car driven by Sinai, a contrast with Fane's big, American car; Sinai's vehicle approaches Alda Nuova along the same road that Fane's car did, again passing the statue of Mary. The scene dissolves to the village square, where much of the dialogue that follows is in Italian, untranslated for the viewer. The villagers pretend ignorance of Fane and the group of young people who were last seen attacking him enter the square in almost martial formation. The elders give the young people glances that warn them not to say anything about the missing man.
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| Raymond Cavaleri as Giulio |
Sinai notices that a crippled man in the square sports Fane's expensive pen in his shirt pocket; the man claims, in Italian, that it was a gift from his grandfather in Naples. Sinai and Crowder drive to the ruins with the same trio of young villagers in the back of their car who had accompanied Frankie earlier, and the scene dissolves again to the ruins, where Paolo begins his tourist speech. Crowder sees Fane's car, upside down and lying at the base of the mountain. Unlike in the short story, where Sinai appears fearful of the villagers, here he is resigned, telling Crowder that "'you cannot prosecute a whole village.'" Crowder closely examines the entrance to the tunnel before he and Sinai return to their car, where they have their last conversation as they sit by the ruins. Sinai ends with the same words that he uses in the story and the car drives off. The final shot shows Paolo lighting a cigarette with Frankie Fane's lighter, the initials "F.F." shown in close up.
"The Children of Alda Nuova" is an effective adaptation of a great short story, gradually pulling the viewer into a horrible situation. The show is atmospherically directed by Robert Florey (1900-1979), who creates a sense of menace and unfamiliarity on a limited budget. Born in Paris, France, he came to Hollywood in 1921, where he began as an assistant director and soon was promoted to director, making films from 1927 to 1951. Some of his best-known movies are The Cocoanuts (1927), Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), and The Beast With Five Fingers (1946). He switched to television in 1951 and worked in that medium until 1964, directing episodes of The Twilight Zone, Thriller, and The Outer Limits, as well as five episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Changing Heart."
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| Ray Giarrusso as Cesare |
Paolo is played by Thano Rama, who had a short screen career from 1959 to 1964. He is effective as the young villager who is the de facto leader in this situation due to his knowledge of the English language, which he says he learned from members of the U.S. Army.
Christopher Dark (1920-1971) portrays Ainsley Crowder; born Alfred Francis DeLeo, he served in the Army in WWII and acted on the New York stage and on screen from 1950 to his death, usually on TV. He was also in one episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: "Forecast: Low Clouds and Coastal Fog." In "The Children of Alda Nuova," he is convincing as a young Ph.D. student.
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| Vincent Padula |
Sinai is played by Stefan Schnabel (1912-1999), who was born in Berlin, Germany, and who came to the U.S. in 1937. An original member of Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre, Schnabel appeared on radio, stage, and screen, in a long career that lasted until 1992. He served in the Army in WWII and had a recurring role on the TV soap opera, The Guiding Light, from 1973 to 1981. This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock show, but he appeared in the Bus Stop episode, "I Kiss Your Shadow," which was based on a story by Robert Bloch.
In smaller roles:
- Lidia Vana as the old woman outside the village church; this appears to be her only credit.
- David Fresco (1909-1997) as the crippled man in the village square; he was on screen from 1946 to 1997 and he was blacklisted in 1956. Despite that, he appeared in twelve episodes of the Hitchcock show, including "The Day of the Bullet," as well as episodes of The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery.
- Carlo Tricoli (1889-1966) as the man in the village square; born in Italy, he was on screen from 1949 to 1964.
- Christy Cummins as Gina, the girl with long hair who rides in both cars; this was one of two TV roles she played in 1962. She was also a singer who recorded singles from 1961 to 1964.
- Raymond Cavaleri (1947-2021) as Giulio, the small boy who rides in both cars; he was on TV from 1961 to 1970 and appeared in a couple of movies and one episode of Thriller. He was more successful as a talent agent.
- Ray Giarrusso as Cesare, the young man who guards Frankie's car and ends up getting hit; he appeared in a few TV episodes between 1955 and 1962 and had an uncredited film role in 1955.
- Vincent Padula (1898-1967) as the waiter at the cafe; born in Buenos Aires, he started appearing in films in Argentina in 1927 and seems to have moved to the U.S. around 1950; his film and TV credits extend to 1965.
Watch "The Children of Alda Nuova" online here. Season seven has not been released on U.S. DVD. Thanks to Tom Seabrook for providing a copy of the short story!
Sources:
"The Children of Alda Nuova." Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 7, episode 35, NBC, 5 June 1962.
Christy Cummins Discography - USA - 45cat, www.45cat.com/artist/christy-cummins.
Edgar Awards Info & Database, edgarawards.com.
The FICTIONMAGS Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/fmi/0start.htm.
Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub, 2001.
IBDB, www.ibdb.com.
IMDb, www.imdb.com.
RadioGold Index, radiogoldin.library.umkc.edu.
Stephensen-Payne, Phil. Galactic Central, www.philsp.com.
Wallsten, Robert. "The Children of Alda Nuova." To Be Read Before Midnight: 21 Stories from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Random House, New York, 1960, pp. 77–90.
RadioGold Index, radiogoldin.library.umkc.edu.
Stephensen-Payne, Phil. Galactic Central, www.philsp.com.
Wallsten, Robert. "The Children of Alda Nuova." To Be Read Before Midnight: 21 Stories from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Random House, New York, 1960, pp. 77–90.
Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, www.wikipedia.org.
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