Old Guard

Drama · 1934

There were very few commercial feature films made during the Italian fascist era that were as openly propagandistic as this famous (notorious?) dramatic paean to the Blackshirts. The story takes place in a small village in Italy in October of 1922, on the eve of the fascist "March on Rome", in which King Victor Emanuel III was persuaded to consign power to Benito Mussolini. Gianfranco Giachetti is Dr. Cardini, a doctor at the local psychiatric hospital, where a strike has been called by the local socialists. Cardini turns to the fascists to help avert the strike. His son Roberto (Mino Doro) rounds up fascist friends to fight those aligned with the strikers and the town's socialists.

Starring

Gianfranco Giachetti, Otello Martelli, Alessandro Blasetti, Mino Doro, Alessandro Blasetti, Franco Brambilla, Alessandro Blasetti, Maria Puccini, Leo Bomba, Giuseppe Zucca, Barbara Monis

Director

Alessandro Blasetti