Marie José of Belgium Claretta Petacci, claimed in her diary that in 1937 the then princess and wife of the heir to the throne tried and failed to seduce the dictator at a beach resort near Rome. However, Mussolini's son, Romano, claims that the princess and dictator entered into a sexual relationship. In 1943, the Crown Princess involved herself in vain attempts to arrange a separate peace treaty between Italy and the United States; her interlocutor from the Vatican was Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini, a senior diplomat who later became Pope Paul VI. Her attempts were not sponsored by the king and Umberto was
The Mistress of the World audience." Carjels compares "The Mistress of the World" to a modern globe-trotting adventure story more akin to an Indiana Jones or Lara Croft film, rather than a more intellect take such as "Madame Dubarry". Although receiving mixed reviews, the public responded positively and "The Mistress of the World" was the most commercially successful German film of the 1919-1920 season, outstripping "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920) in popular appeal. "The Mistress of the World" was released in the United States in 1922 by Paramount Pictures but was shortened and re-edited into four films, spanning twenty reels, the result of which