The whole book-to-movie pipeline has always intrigued me. I may be rare in that I enjoy debates with friends about “was the book better than the movie?” I find the winner is usually whichever medium I experienced first, which often favors the book.

But sometimes I read a book so obviously destined for Hollywood, I begin to dream a bit about how good the movie could be. Such is the case with Beneath A Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan (2017). If I had Google in this stupid jail, I bet I would find that movie rights are already sewn up. (Editor’s note: see first comment below.)

One of the reasons I’m so convinced we will see this on the big screen is that Beneath A Scarlet Sky is based on a true story. It concerns 17 year-old Italian Pino Lella, who is sent from his Milan home near the end of World War II to a mountain retreat, where he helps Jews fleeing to Switzerland. To avoid being drafted at 18 and sent to the Soviet front, Pino’s parents arrange for him to join the occupying Nazis in a local assignment. That assignment evolves into driver and sometimes translator for general Hans Leyer, the second most powerful Nazi in Italy. Pino becomes a spy for the allies, placed high in the German command. But he’s really just a kid, and he falls in love.

The story is so good that how true it is (or is not) doesn’t bother me much. The book is called a novel because the author Sullivan admits he had to fill in some parts that were still missing after his decades of research.

The movie producers may struggle with this “is it true or not” question, but I hope not. I hope it either goes to Spielberg for the epic treatment or it goes to Christopher Nolan for the darker approach. I favor Nolan because of the rich moral dilemmas evoked by the story. Hans Leyer is a complex character capable of heroic acts of compassion and terrible atrocities. In the right hands, this character will produce an Oscar.

The movie will also generate fervent, important discussions about the vacuum of sanity that occurs right at the end of an occupation. This was particularly brutal in Northern Italy, as the Germans retreated from there last, and Italy was torn between Mussollini’s Fascists and The Resistance. Before law and order could be restored, there was much senseless violence. It is provocatively depicted in this book. We might be well-served to remember the chaos at the end of World War II when we seek to end our occupations in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Link to Beneath A Scarlet Sky on Powells.com