Death of Benito Mussolini Milan, where he had been based, and tried to escape to the Swiss border. He and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were captured on 27 April by local partisans near the village of Dongo on Lake Como. Mussolini and Petacci were shot the following afternoon, two days before Adolf Hitler's suicide. The bodies of Mussolini and Petacci were taken to Milan and left in a suburban square, the Piazzale Loreto, for a large angry crowd to insult and physically abuse. They were then hung upside down from a metal girder above a service station on the square. The bodies were beaten,
The Great Dictator [he] was terrified, not knowing what to expect next." The Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in Beverly Hills, California, has a copy of "The Great Dictator" script. The library permits viewers of the script to read it and take notes, but prohibits photocopying of it. In 1997, "The Great Dictator" was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant". In 2000, the American Film Institute ranked the film No. 37 in its "100 Years... 100 Laughs" list. The film