| "The Killers of Mussolini" | |
|---|---|
| Playhouse 90 episode | |
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| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 45 |
| Directed by | Buzz Kulik |
| Written by | A. E. Hotchner |
| Original air date | June 4, 1959 |
| Guest appearances | |
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"The Killers of Mussolini" is an American television play broadcast live on June 4, 1959, as part of the CBS television series Playhouse 90 . It was the 35th episode of the third season. The cast includes Nehemiah Persoff as Benito Mussolini and Harry Guardino as an Italian partisan leader.
The play dramatizes the final days and death of Benito Mussolini. It begins in April 1945 in Milan; a Mussolini associate, Zerbino, oversees the removal of $60 million in gold jewelry from the Italian treasury. Mussolini meets with his ministers and reviews their options. The Blackshirts have disbanded and are unavailable to escort Mussolini.
Cardinal Schuster arranges a meeting to discuss terms of surrender between Mussolini and Marshal Rodolfo Graziani and partisan leaders, including Gen. Raffaele Cadorna Jr. and Luigi Longo. The partisans demand unconditional surrender, but Mussolini opts to flee for Switzerland with his gold. The partisans learn of Mussolini's plan and make plans to capture him.
In Como, Mussolini is joined by his mistress, Claretta Petacci. After his path is blocked by partisan roadblocks, he attaches his group to a group of Germans led by Major Kurtz. When Kurtz betrays Mussolini to the Germans, Mussolini pays a group of Germans to allow him to hide among them in a German uniform. He is discovered in Dongo hiding among the Germans. The local partisan leader, Luigi Neri, confronts Mussolini with his crimes, and the people call for Mussolini to be hung.
The partisan leaders in Milan conduct Mussolini's trial in absentia. They find him guilty of treason and sentence him to death. Mussolini watches from his cell as his ministers are to be executed by a firing squad. Before the firing squad can act, a mob attacks and kills the ministers. Alone in his cell, Mussolini speaks to God and blames Hitler for all that has happened in Italy.
The Communists seek to steal Mussolini's treasures for the benefit of the party. Neri refuses to take part in the plot, and he is executed. Col. Tedesco arrives pretending to rescue Mussolini and Claretta. They drive to Villa Belmonte where Tedesco executes Mussolini. Claretta begs to be killed as well, and she is executed. A few days later, Mussolini is returned to Milan where he is shown in documentary footage hung by his feet "to quiet the skeptics who didn't believe the Duce was really dead."
The cast included performances by: [1]
Lee J. Cobb, the star of the following week's episode, "Project Immortality", hosted the broadcast.
Buzz Kulik was both the producer and the director. A.E. Hotchner wrote the teleplay. [1]
The production received generally negative reviews.
In The New York Times , Jack Gould wrote the that play focused so much on the details of Mussolini's flight and capture that "there was little time for any penetrating or meaningful characterization." [2]
John Crosby of the New York Herald Tribune criticized Persoff's performance as "a very actorish performance in a very actorish role" and found Guardino with his "open American accent" to be "terribly miscast." He was also puzzled by the attempt to portray the Communist partisans as the villains and concluded: "Both as play-writing and as political commentary, this is pretty bad." [3]
William Ewald of the UPI wrote that it "can be summed up in a single unhappy sentence: It didn't play well." He blamed Hotchner for employing "cheap emotional contrivances" and "shoddy ironies" and failing to pull the "chunky material" together into "a tight dramatic package." He found Persoff's performance unconvincing but credited Windish with turning in "the only hard and effective portrait in the entire piece." [4]
Clara "Claretta" Petacci was a mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She was killed by Italian partisans during Mussolini's execution.
Alessandro Pavolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and essayist. He was notable for his involvement in the Italian fascist government, during World War II, and also for his cruelty against the opponents of fascism.
Luigi Longo, also known as Gallo, was an Italian communist politician and general secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1964 to 1972. He was also the first foreigner to be awarded an Order of Lenin.
The Italian resistance movement is an umbrella term for the Italian resistance groups who fought the occupying forces of Nazi Germany and the fascist collaborationists of the Italian Social Republic during the Second World War in Italy from 1943 to 1945. As a diverse anti-fascist movement and organisation, the Resistenza opposed Nazi Germany, as well as Nazi Germany's Italian puppet state regime, the Italian Social Republic, which the Germans created following the Nazi German invasion and military occupation of Italy by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS from 8 September 1943 until 25 April 1945.
Rachele Guidi, also known as Donna Rachele and incorrectly as Rachele Mussolini in the English-speaking world, was the second wife of Italian dictator and fascist leader Benito Mussolini.
Marshal of Italy Luigi Cadorna, was an Italian general, Marshal of Italy and Count, most famous for being the Chief of Staff of the Italian Army from 1914 until 1917 during World War I. During this period he acquired a reputation for rigid discipline and the harsh treatment of his troops. Cadorna achieved successes at the battles of Asiago and Gorizia but, following a major defeat at the Battle of Caporetto in late 1917, he was relieved as Chief of Staff.
Mezzegra is a former comune (municipality) in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy. Since 21 January 2014 it is part of the comune of Tremezzina.
The Italian Civil War was a civil war in the Kingdom of Italy fought during the Italian campaign of World War II between Italian fascists and Italian partisans and, to a lesser extent, the Italian Co-belligerent Army.
Alfredo Ildefonso Schuster was an Italian Catholic prelate and professed member from the Benedictines who served as the Archbishop of Milan from 1929 until his death. He became known as Ildefonso as a Benedictine monk and served as an abbot prior to his elevation to the cardinalate.
Walter Audisio was an Italian partisan and communist politician, also known by his nom-de-guerreColonel Valerio. A member of the Italian resistance movement during World War II, Audisio was involved in the death of Benito Mussolini, and personally executed the dictator and his mistress Clara Petacci according to the generally accepted account of the event.
Raffaele Cadorna Jr. was an Italian general who fought during World War I and World War II. He is famous as one of the commanders of the Italian Resistance against German occupying forces in north Italy after 1943.
Piazzale Loreto is a major city square in Milan, Italy.
Last Days of Mussolini is a 1974 Italian historical drama film co-written and directed by Carlo Lizzani and starring Rod Steiger, Franco Nero and Lisa Gastoni. The film depicts the days leading up to the death of Benito Mussolini, the Italian dictator, when he attempted to flee Milan in April 1945 at the end of World War II in Europe.
Giuseppina Tuissi, better known as Gianna was an Italian communist and partisan during World War II. She was part of the 52nd Brigata Garibaldi "Luigi Clerici". From September 1944, she was a collaborator of the partisan Luigi Canali and, with him, had an important role in the arrest and the execution of Benito Mussolini and Clara Petacci.
Claretta and Ben is a 1974 Italian comedy film directed by Gian Luigi Polidoro.
Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe. The generally accepted version of events is that Mussolini was shot by Walter Audisio, a communist partisan. However, since the end of the war, the circumstances of Mussolini's death, and the identity of his executioner, have been subjects of continuing dispute and controversy in Italy.
"For Whom the Bell Tolls" was an American television play broadcast in two parts on March 12 and March 19, 1959, as part of the CBS television series, Playhouse 90. It is a television adaptation of the 1940 novel by Ernest Hemingway. John Frankenheimer was the director. The cast included Jason Robards, Maria Schell, and Maureen Stapleton.
Marcello Cesare Augusto Petacci was an Italian surgeon and businessman, the brother of actress Maria Petacci and of dictator Benito Mussolini's lover Clara Petacci.
The Valtellina Redoubt or, officially, in Italian: Ridotto Alpino Repubblicano or RAR, was the intended final stronghold or redoubt of the Italian fascist regime of Benito Mussolini at the end of World War II in Europe. It was to be based in the Valtellina, a valley in the Italian Alps, which had the natural protection afforded by the surrounding mountains as well as the possibility of re-using fortifications built in the area for World War I. The idea was initially proposed in September 1944 by Alessandro Pavolini, one of the fascist leaders, who saw it as the place for the regime to make a "heroic" last stand which would inspire a future fascist revolution.
Piazzale Loreto massacre was a Nazi-Fascist massacre that took place in Italy, on 10 August 1944 in Piazzale Loreto, Milan, during the World War II.
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