Mussolini's Dream Factory

This book offers the first extended analysis of film stardom in Fascist Italy, focusing on the period from the start of sound cinema to the final end of Fascism in 1945. The author examines the development of an Italian star system, evaluates its place in film production and distribution, and explores its relationships with the political sphere and with broader commercial culture. The popular press, along with other evidence, is used to assess the extent of public engagement with film stars. Several major stars, including Isa Miranda, Vittorio De Sica, Amedeo Nazzari and Alida Valli, are closely analysed in terms of their screen performances and professional trajectories, including their fates in the aftermath of the Fascist regime. The book makes an original contribution to the understanding of Italian Fascism and the cinema of the period by tackling a field hitherto neglected, despite it being deemed important enough by the regime to warrant sustained attention and interference. A final chapter explores the place of the stars in popular memory and representations of the Fascist film world in postwar cinema. Stephen Gundle is Professor of Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick. His books include Between Hollywood and Moscow: the Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass Culture, 1943-91 (2000), Bellissima: Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy (2007), Mass Culture and Italian Society from Fascism to the Cold War (2008, with David Forgacs), Glamour: A History (2008) and Death and the Dolce Vita: The Dark Side of Rome in the 1950s (2011). He is co-editor, with Christopher Duggan and Giuliana Pieri, of The Cult of the Duce: Mussolini and the Italians (2013).