Yellow Caesar
Yellow Caesar is a 1941 propaganda film produced by Ealing Studios and Michael Balcon and directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. One of the screenwriters was Michael Foot, later leader of the Labour party.[1]
Yellow Caesar | |
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Directed by | Alberto Cavalcanti |
Written by | Adrian Brunel (dialogue) Frank Owen (uncredited) Michael Foot (uncredited)[1] |
Music by | Walter Leigh |
Cinematography | John Taylor |
Edited by | Charles Crichton |
Production companies | |
Release date |
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Running time | 24 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Synopsis
Yellow Caesar is billed as an 'assessment' of the life and rise to power of the self-styled Il Duce, Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Writing for the Screenonline website, Mark Duguid comments that the short "is an unusually direct piece of agit-prop and probably the most striking of the 30-odd propaganda shorts released by Ealing Studios during WWII."[1][2] The film traces Mussolini's years as a trade unionist thug and his role as a fascist demagogue.[3]
Reception
Whilst generally well received by British audiences, there were doubts about the film's reception in neutral Eire, where censors had previously refused to pass Charlie Chaplin's Great Dictator.[4]
Cast
- Douglas Byng – English Sympathiser
- Marcel King – Mussolini (voice)
- Sam Lee – Mussolini (voice)
- Lito Masconas - Radio Announcer
- Max Spiro - Mussolini (voice)
- Feliks Topolski – Cartoonist
- Jack Warrock - Mussolini (voice)
References
- "Yellow Caesar (1941)". BFI Screenonline. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
- ”Musso shown in his true light”, Liverpool Evening Express, 22 March 1941
- ”Around the Shows”, North Devon Journal-Herald, 20 March 1941
- ”Mussolini”, Belfast Newsletter, 7 April 1941.