The film, like the almost contemporaneous Hitler: The Last 10 Days, follows the final hours of one of the leaders of the axis powers during WW2, in this case Benito Mussolini. Rod Steiger plays Il Duce (a role he was later to repeat in Lion of the Desert) and the bulk of the film concentrates on the former dictator coming to terms with the fact that his freedom is gone and his life may soon be as well. It is a compelling performance, as Mussolini begins defiant as the Germans demand to keep him under close guard (on the express orders of the Führer), attempts to wheedle deals with the Church and the Swiss to ensure an escape to neutral territory then falls into a sullen sulk as he is made a prisoner of the Italian partisans, realising that he is probably going to be executed. By the time he is put up against a wall with a gun pointed in his direction, he is almost catatonic.
This delineation of Mussolini's fall from power gives the film an authentically tragic aspect. It is as if the first 4 acts of Macbeth were cut and the final movement, with Birnam Woods closing in on the trapped usurper, were to constitute the entire drama. There is a wannabe Nietzschean aspect to Il Duce, a man who it is emphasised in the film looked on himself and was looked on by others as a God, although the slumped wreck we see being executed at the end is quite without divinity. The film strongly posits that Mussolini lost his self entirely when he lost power, an idea given vivid visual expression when he is wrapped in a head-bandage whilst being transported, the god-Emperor being reduced to the Invisible Man. The film portrays the dictator as a morally dubious but not utterly condemnable character – although he sheds no tears nor has any feeling for the ruin he has brought on his nation, he is a man constantly let down by those he trust, whether it be his protégé Hitler who invaded Russia against Benito's advice or his own black-shirts, who fail to provide the promised cavalry to rescue him.
Two other important character studies are intriguing. Mussolini's mistress, Claretta Petacci, is portrayed as the ultimate in servile love, even sacrificing herself at the end in a vain attempt to save the man to whom she has uncritically (if jealously) devoted her life. In the final third of the film, the partisan leader Walter Audisio 'Valerio' becomes a focus of attention, driven onwards with a single-minded mission to ensure that Mussolini is executed in the name of the Italian people rather than becoming a trophy prisoner of either the Americans or the British. That Valerio is a rather inhuman, cold figure adds a certain odd ambiguity to the film, as only on an ideological level could we sympathise with this man against the Mussolini that we see through Steiger's performance. I am not sure whether to call this ambiguity daring or dangerous. The mistress and nemesis of the dictator are played respectively, and excellently, by Lisa Gastoni and Franco Nero. Henry Fonda has an intriguing cameo as a rather reptilian Cardinal, whose sympathies and opinions are impossible to gauge.
The film begins at a stonking pace, cutting quickly through events and setting out the story admirably. The pace evens a little the tension mounts and the relationship between the dictators and his mistress gets explored with some depth and the negotiations as to what will happen to him get murkier.
On the whole this is a rather remarkable film, deserving of being much better known. It is a decent history lesson but, far more, a brilliant character study and chilling portrait of what happens when a human being overreaches himself and is brought down to nothing and death.
This delineation of Mussolini's fall from power gives the film an authentically tragic aspect. It is as if the first 4 acts of Macbeth were cut and the final movement, with Birnam Woods closing in on the trapped usurper, were to constitute the entire drama. There is a wannabe Nietzschean aspect to Il Duce, a man who it is emphasised in the film looked on himself and was looked on by others as a God, although the slumped wreck we see being executed at the end is quite without divinity. The film strongly posits that Mussolini lost his self entirely when he lost power, an idea given vivid visual expression when he is wrapped in a head-bandage whilst being transported, the god-Emperor being reduced to the Invisible Man. The film portrays the dictator as a morally dubious but not utterly condemnable character – although he sheds no tears nor has any feeling for the ruin he has brought on his nation, he is a man constantly let down by those he trust, whether it be his protégé Hitler who invaded Russia against Benito's advice or his own black-shirts, who fail to provide the promised cavalry to rescue him.
Two other important character studies are intriguing. Mussolini's mistress, Claretta Petacci, is portrayed as the ultimate in servile love, even sacrificing herself at the end in a vain attempt to save the man to whom she has uncritically (if jealously) devoted her life. In the final third of the film, the partisan leader Walter Audisio 'Valerio' becomes a focus of attention, driven onwards with a single-minded mission to ensure that Mussolini is executed in the name of the Italian people rather than becoming a trophy prisoner of either the Americans or the British. That Valerio is a rather inhuman, cold figure adds a certain odd ambiguity to the film, as only on an ideological level could we sympathise with this man against the Mussolini that we see through Steiger's performance. I am not sure whether to call this ambiguity daring or dangerous. The mistress and nemesis of the dictator are played respectively, and excellently, by Lisa Gastoni and Franco Nero. Henry Fonda has an intriguing cameo as a rather reptilian Cardinal, whose sympathies and opinions are impossible to gauge.
The film begins at a stonking pace, cutting quickly through events and setting out the story admirably. The pace evens a little the tension mounts and the relationship between the dictators and his mistress gets explored with some depth and the negotiations as to what will happen to him get murkier.
On the whole this is a rather remarkable film, deserving of being much better known. It is a decent history lesson but, far more, a brilliant character study and chilling portrait of what happens when a human being overreaches himself and is brought down to nothing and death.