Old Guard

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 towns socialists