Rod Steiger plays Mussolini like a cornered rat in designer boots — gloriously unhinged.
In 1945, the dictator of fascist Italy and Hitler's close ally Benito Mussolini faces defeat. In a desperate attempt to avoid capture, he tries to flee the country with his lover Claretta Petacci, but Italian partisans are on their tail.
Acting
Steiger's Mussolini — sweaty, deluded, somehow pitiful.
Direction
Lizzani's documentary-neorealist hybrid feels uncomfortably immediate.
Costume
Il Duce's collapsing uniforms mirror his collapsing ego.
Director
Carlo Lizzani
Rod Steiger
Mussolini
Lisa Gastoni
Claretta Petacci
Franco Nero
Walter Audisio
Henry Fonda
Kardinal Schuster
Lino Capolicchio
Pedro
Massimo Sarchielli
Alessandro Pavolini
Andrea Aureli
Francesco Maria Barracu
Rodolfo Dal Pra
Rodolfo Graziani
Giacomo Rossi Stuart
Jack Donati
Giuseppe Addobbati
Raffaele Cadorna
Umberto Raho
Guido Leto
Bruno Corazzari
Tenente Fritz Birzer
Manfred Freyberger
capitano Otto Kisnat
Franco Balducci
Francesco Colombo
Franco Mazzieri
Guido Buffarini Guidi
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Franco Nero, who plays partisan leader Audisio, was fresh off Django — Italian audiences must've done whiplash seeing him shoot fascists instead of cowboys.
Made during Italy's Years of Lead, when political violence was tearing the country apart — the film's urgent partisans-vs-fascists framing felt dangerously contemporary, not safely historical.
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