Mussolini in Poland

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COURTESY of PERANTONI FAMILY COLLECTIONS

(CONTINUED) The film depicts accounts of forgotten history such as how Fascism had begun as a "Youth Movement" in the 1920s – Also, more forgotten history such as Mussolini's repeated rejections of Adolf Hitler's friendship for more than ten years prior to accepting his rapport. And why, for many years, did Mussolini refer to Hitler as "a silly little monkey"?  Another forgotten fact is that in the 1920s, after the Spanish Flu pandemic, Mussolini told Italian people that shaking hands transmits disease. So he told them to just raise a hand and WAVE A GREETING instead of shaking hands. In time his Fascist 'Black Shirts' would transform the 'greeting wave' into a military style. Ten years later, Hitler's Nazi Germany had adopted it as the official 'Nazi Salute.' It was only supposed to be a stem for contagion of Spanish Flu !!  Our script contains other similar accounts.

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CASTING 18-YEAR-OLD VICTOR PERANTONI in the  Pilot/Feature Film is limited to Mussolini's 1929 luncheon scene.  In the Mini-Series, instead, young Victor is cast in three flashbacks. Victor is an 18-year-old completely absorbed in the  Fascist Youth Movement. In 1929, when Duce Benito Mussolini holds a luncheon and speech in his father's wine hall – "Winiarnia Italia" – Victor is given the honor of singing the lead to Italy's Fascist national anthem ("Giovinezza") accompanied by the glory of his beloved Duce and the other men in the hall.  But, the loyalty of Carlo Perantoni is for the King, Victor Emmanuel III, who had appointed him as Honorary Vice Consul soon after the First World War in 1919, prior to the Fascist movement.  Carlo frowns on Mussolini's Fascism and he tactfully shares his fears with Luigi and Victor, his two sons. Luigi capably learns from his father, but Carlo must be patient with Victor, letting him learn for himself over the war years, as the Duce's Fascist rule results in critical blunders that Carlo warns Victor about. So, Carlo remains patient with Victor. (Italy's Fascist national anthem's titled "Giovinezza" means "Youth")

CASTING 28-YEAR-OLD VICTOR PERANTONI. The next scenes are forwarded to August 1939. Victor is recast as a handsome 28-year-old young man. He's a successful wine merchant with plenty connections, most which are females! He's Italian, and he flaunts it, except in Italy where he exults being from the renown and vibrant city of "Leopoli" (Lwów) ... ... in Poland's distant east! He keeps every stitch of his apparel sporting the best taste of Italy's youth styles ... that being, the civilian Fascist Youth attire. He dresses elegant, always in top style: 'pantaloni alla zuava' (baggy knickerbockers) - – sports coat - tie - and always exhibiting his Fascist PNF badge that Mussolini gave him 10-years earlier, at the "Winiarnia Italia" in 1929. His style is very popular in Italy and quite attractive elsewhere in Europe, but mostly to members of the opposite sex! He's a serious wine merchant with lots of class. The class of a well-off Fascist playboy! He continues to be cast in this same manner over the wartime years prior to the Allied invasion(1939-1943) as he gradually changes his view about the Duce and Fascism.  In 1943, Victor marries Luigina during the  period that the Allies take Sicily ... and the King has Mussolini arrested. Their honeymoon will be during the Allied landings – The invasion of Italy's mainland.  Then, 1944 and 1945 are years of heightened emotions as Victor's opinion about Fascism matures and its deadly fallacy becomes evident.  Victor reverses his regard for Mussolini and he's appalled by the Duce's blunders that Carlo had been foretelling and teaching him ... ... since he was eighteen.  In 1944 Victor secretely proclaims to family and friends in Volargne about his new anti-Fascist posture and he conspires with Carlo and Luigi in acts of biological sabotage against the Wehrmacht by spiking their supplies of wine ... to cause diarrhea! 1945 brings liberation and jubilation to Victor, but 1946 brings betrayal and desolation as his reality disturbs him with all that the war had caused. CLICK FOR LARGE VIEW

VICTOR BECOMES ANTI-FASCIST. During the war's early years (1940-1943) Victor continues to display faith in Fascism, but inwardly he's doubtful as Italy's involvement in the war escalates, and his hopes of returning to Lwów diminish.  He crosses the threshold into devoted anti-Fascism the day that Volargne is totally destroyed 21 November, 1944. That day Victor blames Nazi-Fascism for losing both towns of his youth: Lwów in 1939 and Volargne in 1944. On 21 November 1944, Victor finally loses all faith in Fascism as he finds himself walking over the dust and rubble of his beloved Italian hometown, Volargne di Dolcé.  On that day Volargne had been utterly destroyed in one instant due to the workings of the Nazi-Fascist regime in north Italy. The town had been blown to dust and rubble as a direct result of Nazi carelessness ... and Mussolini's association with Adolf Hitler. A most touching scene shows Victor "in the devastated rubble of his youth" where he finally realizes the truth that his father had asserted to him since the 1929 Fascist luncheon in the "Winiarnia." There, in the rubble, in the presence of the injured and the dead, and with loud treasonous explosive emotion, Victor disavows his loyalty to Italy's Duce, and he renounces Fascism altogether. COURTESY: GIANFRANCO POLICANTE & PRO LOCO VOLARGNE CLICK FOR LARGE VIEW ---------------------------------------------------------CLICK FOR LARGE VIEW

LIVING WITH THE ENEMY - CLICK FOR LARGE VIEW

LIVING WITH THE ENEMY - CLICK FOR LARGE VIEW