The choice of many of the actors was based on a feeling on both deep respect and personal friendship, as in the case of Betsy Blair. We were both communists, she was one of the “Hollywood Ten”, ousted from the cinema industry after being accused of communism by the McCarthy witch hunts. I was often in Paris at the time and there was a whole colony of American left-wingers there, including Wilson, the screenwriter of The Bridge on the River Kwai, Losey and Dassin, and I was a great friend of theirs, especially Betsy Blair, Ben Barzman and John Berry. (…) Betsy Blair and I became great friends during the film. Back at the Jolly Hotel in Ascoli Piceno where we stayed during shooting, when Gene Kelly, her husband, used to phone, we were always a little open-mouthed, because he was a legend to us all. We always felt slightly awed, despite our intellectual communist snobbery.

Francesco Maselli in I delfini, Lindau, 1998