| "The Killers of Mussolini" | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Playhouse 90 episode | |||
 | |||
| Episode no. | Season 3 Episode 35 | ||
| Directed by | Buzz Kulik | ||
| Written by | A. E. Hotchner | ||
| Original air date | June 4, 1959 | ||
| Guest appearances | |||
| |||
"The Killers of Mussolini" was an American television play broadcast live on November 22, 1956, as part of the CBS television series, Playhouse 90 . It was the 35th episode of the third season. The cast included 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 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 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 Persoff's performance unconvincing but credited Windish with turning in "the only hard and effective portrait in the entire piece." [4]
Clara Petacci, known as Claretta Petacci, was a mistress of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. She was killed during Mussolini's execution by Italian partisans, allegedly throwing herself on him in a vain attempt to protect him from the bullets.
The Italian Social Republic, popularly and historically known as the Republic of Salò, was a German puppet state with limited recognition that was created during the later part of World War II, and existing from the beginning of German occupation of Italy in September 1943 until the surrender of German troops in Italy in May 1945. During the civil war, which split the country in two, it fought against the Italian Resistance.
Alessandro Pavolini was an Italian politician, journalist, and essayist, notable for his involvement in the 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 secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1964 to 1972. He was also the first foreigner to be awarded an Order of Lenin.
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Rachele Mussolini, also known as Donna Rachele, was the second wife of Italian dictator and fascist leader Benito Mussolini, the daughter-in-law of Alessandro Mussolini and Rosa Mussolini and the sister-in-law of Arnaldo Mussolini.
Marshal of Italy Luigi Cadorna, was an Italian general and Marshal of Italy, most famous for being the Chief of Staff of the Italian Army from 1914-1917 of World War I. Because of the multiple and consecutive failed attacks led by him, the large number of casualties incurred among his own men, and his personal reputation as disproportionately bitter and ruthless, Cadorna is often considered one of the conflict's worst military generals.
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The Italian Civil War was a civil war in Italy fought by the Italian Resistance and Italian Co-Belligerent Army against the Italian Fascists and Italian Social Republic from 9 September 1943 to 2 May 1945. The Italian Resistance and the Co-Belligerent Army also simultaneously fought against the Nazi German armed forces, which began occupying Italy immediately prior to the armistice and then invaded and occupied Italy on a larger scale after the armistice.
Walter Audisio was an Italian communist partisan and politician. He was imprisoned during the late 1930s and early 1940s by the Italian fascist regime for his anti-fascist and anti-capitalist activities. As a senior partisan of the Italian resistance movement after his release during World War II, Audisio was involved in the death of Benito Mussolini, and possibly personally killed the dictator and his mistress. After the war, he was elected to parliament for the Italian Communist Party, where he served for 20 years.
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.
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Claretta and Ben is a 1974 Italian comedy film directed by Gian Luigi Polidoro.
The death of Benito Mussolini, the deposed Italian fascist dictator, occurred on 28 April 1945, in the final days of World War II in Europe, when he was summarily executed by an Italian partisan in the small village of Giulino di Mezzegra in northern Italy. 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 killer, have been subjects of continuing confusion, dispute and controversy in Italy.
I'm Back is a 2018 Italian satirical comedy film about Benito Mussolini directed by Luca Miniero, based on the German film Look Who's Back, in turn based on the satirical novel of the same name. The film includes unscripted vignettes of ordinary Italians interacting with Massimo Popolizio, interspersed among scripted scenes.
The Brigate Garibaldi or Garibaldi Brigades were partisan units aligned with the Italian Communist Party active in the armed resistance against both German and Italian fascist forces during World War II.
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. 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.