Report on Italy

Series

Series Name

The March of Time 10th Year

Issue

Issue No.

8

Date Released

30 Apr 1945

Length of issue (in feet)

1475

Stories in this Issue:

1. 1Report on Italy

Story

Story No. within this Issue

1 / 1

Summary

The March of Time synopsis: Briefly outlining the rise of Mussolini, whose grandiose ambitions brought Italy to ruin, the film then turns to the Allied advance, fought mile by mile up the peninsular, under the leadership of Field Marshal Sir Harold Alexander. To keep this vital campaign going and to maintain constant pressure on the enemy, the Allies had to reorganise all free Italy as a base for military operations. The entire transportation system, which had been practically demolished either by the Allied offensive or by the retreating Germans, had to be reconstructed to keep arms, men and supplies moving up to the front, and major light and power stations, necessary to the prosecution of the war, had to be restored wherever possible.

In the face of these difficulties, says the film, while the welfare of the Italian people could not be the first consideration of the Allied Control Commission, set up to enforce the armistice terms and restore civic order, the Allies undertook military health control measures. Under the direction of Army doctors, a newly developed insecticide was used to rid homes of typhus-bearing lice and to wipe out the breeding grounds of the malaria-bearing mosquitoes which, in the great lowland farm areas, such as the Pontine Marshes, flooded by the Germans, had become a potential source of epidemics. With most incoming Allied ships loaded to capacity with war supplies, food for civilians can be imported only when cargo space is available, and although in the first eighteen months of occupation one million one hundred and seven thousand tons were supplied to the people of Italy, the food distributed has been barely enough to keep them from starvation. Taking the place of the retired King, Crown Prince Umberto’s presence has comforted many among the still numerous Italians who retain a hankering for Fascism but to anti-Fascists he is a symbol of a discredited monarchy which they hope to see replaced by a representative republican government. Also opposed to the monarchy, says the film, but willing to temporize, are Italy’s Communists whose leader, Palmiro Togliatti, returned from eighteen years in Russia, advocates a modified application of Communism for the Italy of today. Italy’s present Cabinet, whose members represent most of the political parties from conservative to communists, is headed by Premier Ivance Bonomu, unrelenting opponent of Fascism, and though the Cabinet members have no electoral backing and their actual power is slight, they reflect as best they can the feelings and aspirations of the bewildered Italian people, who are today demoralized after twenty odd years of Fascism and Axis tyranny.

In a sequence telling of the discoveries in Rome’s Ardeantine Caves of the remains of 320 Italian hostages brutally killed by the Germans, the March of Time uses an Italian woman’s voice to describe the tragic scenes which occurred when relatives were called upon to identify the victims, many of whom had been prominent anti-Fascists. These men had been seized as a reprisal, after 32 Germans had been killed by a bomb - ten Italians for each German killed - and nothing was heard of them again until after the occupation of Rome, when their remains, in an advanced stage of decomposition, were found. The Germans who were responsible for the massacre escaped but Donato Carretta, warden of Regina Coeli Prison, and Pietro Caruso, Fascist chief of police, were captured. At the trial of Caruso, 3 _ months later, with the court so crowded and chaotic that it was impossible for the proceedings to commence, pandemonium, broke loose, and the infuriated mob, fearful of being cheated of Caruso, seized Carretta and beat him to death. But Caruso did not escape - he was tried later and sentenced to be shot.
Today, says the film, bankrupt and disillusioned, Italy is setting out on the hard road to economic and political reconstruction. Dependent on their conquerors for even the tools with which to begin rebuilding their homes, their lives and their nation, the people of Italy have many a year of hard and unremitting effort before they can hope to become once more self-supporting.

Researcher Comments

This story was included in Vol.11 No.6 of the US edition.

Keywords

Politics and government; Foreign relations; War and conflict

Written sources

The March of Time Promotional Material   Lobby Card, Used for synopsis

Credits:

Production Co.

Time Inc.