[Carlo Ponti, the producer of The Condemned of Altona, should have realised that Vittorio De Sica was the wrong person to tackle Les Sequestres D'Altona, Jean-Paul Sartre's] penetrating play about the German problem….

Altona is a typical example of how Rome is trying to copy the Hollywood formula, and is not getting away with it. De Sica and Zavattini are too sensitive and intelligent to be able to make films in [this] manner…. (p. 131)

De Sica, who nowadays seems to accept directorial assignments as casually as he once accepted acting roles in every other film, deserves most of the creative blame. After all, he is still one of the world's top ten living film-makers. In order to get Altona into movement, he and his director of photography, Roberto Gerardi, have captured some magnificent outdoor shots of Hamburg. By far the best thing in the film is the opening...