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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Giorgio Bertellini, The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America | Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019, pp. 352 (open access)
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Reviews / Comptes rendus
2020-10-01
2021-10-05
2020-10-01
2024-03-10
Cinéma & Cie
Pierluigi Ercole
2020/10/01
De Montfort University, UK
2036-461X
35
en
Giorgio Bertellini, The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America | Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019, pp. 352 (open access)
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16546/20227
20
Giorgio Bertellini
The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political
Leadership in 1920s America
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2019, pp. 352 (open
access)




   Centred on the public notoriety of Hollywood actor Rudolph Valentino
and fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film
Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America is a unique and fascinating
multidisciplinary dialogue between film and political studies, and media and social
history. Three main areas of research are at the core of Giorgio Bertellini’s book:
celebrity culture, political leadership and publicity practice. The complexity of
the task in hand is reflected in the questions guiding the investigation: ‘How was
it possible that in apparently nativist and isolationist 1920s America, a foreign
leader like Mussolini, who never set foot in the country, could become a paragon
of authoritative leadership? […] When and how did film stardom and political
leadership, as apparently distinct institutions of mass governance, became
comparable, parallel and analogous?’ (p. 4).
   The Divo and the Duce opens with a discussion of two unexpected photographs
capturing Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford giving the fascist salute. The
first was taken in 1926 during their visit to Rome, where the two actors met
Mussolini, and the second in 1927 at their home in Los Angeles. As Bertellini
argues, the images, and the events behind them, highlight ‘two converging
historical phenomena: the rising political import of celebrity culture and the
growing popularity of authoritarian political leadership’ (p. 4). At the beginning
of the 1920s for a brief but significant moment, both Mussolini and Valentino
were objects of fascination in the American popular imagination. As the wide
range of archival sources interrogated by Bertellini indicate, the celebrity of the
two Italian-born icons reached beyond their respective domains of politics and
cinema. Publicity departments played a crucial role in this process and capitalized
on the well-rehearsed practices of mass communication management developed
by Hollywood during World War One.
   It is within the collaboration between Woodrow Wilson’s administration and
Hollywood that Bertellini contextualizes the establishment of publicity practices
that ultimately informed the strategies used to promote Valentino and Mussolini.
Bertellini’s attention to the role played by, for instance, the Committee on
Public Information (CPI), a propaganda office established a week after the U.S.
declared war on Germany, is particularly insightful. Chaired by the journalist

                                                Cinéma & Cie, vol. XX, no. 35, Fall 2020
                               Reviews / Comptes-rendus


George Creel, the CPI launched a range of propaganda initiatives that relied
on the film industry’s collaboration. The CPI’s Division of Films not only
produced documentaries and newsreels but also became involved in writing pro-
government scenarios for commercial films and their international distribution. In
Hollywood, part the film industry and its stars eventually embraced propaganda
efforts. Within Bertellini’s frame of analysis the focus on the widely reported
involvement of Fairbanks and Pickford in the patriotic Liberty Loan campaign
might sound obvious. However, The Divo and the Duce skilfully combines the
discussion of the effects of World War One on the two actors’ rising stardom
with their key role as publicity vehicles for the industry and the consequent
global expansion of Hollywood. It is within this precise context that Bertellini
shows the links between propaganda discourse, public opinion management and
celebrity culture. As he highlights, during the 1920s the popularity of film stars
was ‘not a fait accompli but the result of actions taken by individuals on the
basis of institutional imperatives, guesswork, and artful manipulation of popular
rituals and preferences’ (p. 8).
   A multitude of intersecting social and ideological dynamics gave rise to Rudolph
Valentino’s stardom. Institutional and cultural discourses about race, on-screen
narratives of Italian immigrants and representations of masculinity are some of
the tropes that Bertellini discusses to introduce the case study of Valentino. Of
particular note is the meticulous attention payed to the key role of Hollywood’s
publicity and promotional executives in constructing Valentino’s persona, which
reveals novel and enlightening aspects of his story. For instance, the remarkable
detective work conducted by Bertellini on the origins of the notorious Pink
Powder Puff article sheds new light on the scandal. At the centre of the story was
publicist Victor Mansfield Shapiro who founded the Associated Motion Picture
Advertisers in 1916. It was during his collaboration with United Artists for the
distribution of The Son of the Sheik that Shapiro saw an opportunity to create
an arresting publicity stunt that challenged Valentino’s on and off-screen image
of masculinity. Similarly, Bertellini shows how a series of articles, interviews
and promotional news items written by the publicity agent Herbert Hove built
on Valentino’s assertive and authoritarian character portrayed in The Sheik.
As Bertellini explains, during the three years that Hove worked as Valentino’s
publicists, ‘the divo signed off on rare but studied pronouncements that merged
film stardom with politics’ (p. 123). It is, in fact, in one of Hove’s articles that the
parallel between Valentino and Mussolini was first drawn.
   By the time of Valentino’s premature death in August 1926, Mussolini’s
personality cult and his legitimization had already met with consensus within
America’s public opinion. The Divo and the Duce concentrates on networks of
individuals spanning political and cultural spheres that facilitated Mussolini’s
acceptance in the U.S. With its connections to diplomats and financiers, the Italy
America Society (ISA) promoted Mussolini’s public image, and Bertellini very
astutely evidences the detailed operations of its members. Similarly, fiction and
non-fiction films produced in Hollywood attempted to capitalize on Mussolini’s

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                                 The Divo and the Duce


popularity. In 1927, Fox chose to premiere Murnau’s debut American film,
Sunrise, alongside one of the first newsreels produced with its new Movietone
sound system. For the first time American audiences were able to hear the Duce’s
voice in The Man of the Hour, which showed Benito Mussolini in a close-up
delivering a brief, bi-lingual speech. Another example, Mussolini Speaks, was, as
Bertellini suggests, a summary of the Duce’s ‘cinematic visibility.’ Produced by
Columbia Pictures and released in 1933, the film functioned as a biography of
the Fascist leader and recounted his political achievements whilst showcasing his
unique personality and celebrity status.
   The Divo and the Duce is the result of impressive archival research and
Bertellini’s skilful application of a diverse range of theoretical frames and
historical perspectives. The illustrations that accompany each section of the book
are visual evidence of the depth and breadth of the investigation. Alternating his
analyses between close-ups on key protagonists and panoramic views of film and
political histories, Bertellini offers a truly innovative and distinctive approach
to studying the relationship between celebrity culture and political leadership.1

                                    [Pierluigi Ercole, De Montfort University, UK]




1
  The Divo and the Duce: Promoting Film Stardom and Political Leadership in 1920s America
received the 2020 Italian American Studies Association Book Award.

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