Sturmtruppen (film)

• Renato Pozzetto as Rookie
• Lino Toffolo as Rookie
• Cochi Ponzoni as General
• Teo Teocoli as Captain
• Felice Andreasi as Sergeant / The Pope
• Massimo Boldi as Rookie
• Corinne Cléry as The Actress, The Wife, The Woman at the Villa
• Jean-Pierre Marielle as The Unknown Soldier
• Umberto Smaila as The Cook
• Bonvi as The Prisoner^[1]

Strumtruppen is a film based on a comic book series written by Bonvi about the conflict in the trenches of World War II from the point of view of the German army.^[1][4] The comic series originally appeared in 1968.^[4] The idea to adapt Bonvi's scripts to a film came from producers Ermanno Donati and Luigi Carpentieri who had recently produced another popular Italian production set in World War II, Salon Kitty.^[4] The two got in touch with Bonvi through screenwriter Vittorio Vighi.^[4]

Filming was initially set to start in June 1976.^[4] The project eventually went through several different stages as Donati and Carpentieri were not convinced by the original director Ennio De Concini's vision of the film.^[4] The script was originally written by Vittorio Vighi and Maria Pia Fusco but these parts were dropped and director Salvatore Samperi signed as the director.^[4] De Concini later spoke about his involvement in Strumtruppen, stating that he "felt that my relationship with cinema was running out. [...] I did not feeling like doing [Strumptruppen]. I would have made a bad job and a bad movie."^[4]

Sturmtruppen was released in Italy in 1976.^[1] The film was a big box office hit in Italy, grossing over a one billion lire at the box office.^[5] The film's success led to a sequel, Sturmtruppen 2 - Tutti al fronte [it], which was written by Bonvi and again directed by Samperi.^[5]

• List of films based on comics
• List of Italian films of 1976