Mussolini's Picture
Why did Carmine Sabatini have a picture of Mussolini in his office?
shareIt's kind of a throwaway joke that actually doesn't make much sense. Matthew Broderick has a line in which he semi-ironically muses that the picture isn't there "for political reasons or anything." The implication is that mafia guys would be politically right-wing, I guess.
Among the reasons it really doesn't make sense:
- mobsters aren't really political;
- they certainly wouldn't be fond of fascism;
- Mussolini was one of the greatest enemies of the Italian mafia in history (perhaps one of the very few good things one might say about Mussolini);
- in real life, American mobsters were anti-Mussolini when he was still alive.
He was Italian, though.
My interpretation of the film has always been that the Sabotinis weren't really mafia at all, just Italian-American con artists who wanted people to think they had mafia connections. So you could interpret the Mussolini pictures as either a weird joke on their part or a way of intimidating visitors (or both, for that matter).
shareIt certainly wasn't for political reasons.
My Top 50 Films http://www.imdb.com/list/ls033211402/