“Propaganda has seldom been entertainment. Bui if Columbia can escite Italians on the patriotic motive sufficiently, the income should be whatever the Italian trade amounts to. For those not particulary interested in Mussolini it’s just an elongated and somewhat tiresome collection of clips about Il Duce. And there are even plenty of italians in this country who are not interested. Mussolini speaks is cleverly handled for this sort of thing. Il Duce speaks in his native Italian and Lowell Thomas rushes in between breathing spaces with an English translation. Also, between paragraphs. are shown photographic recorde of the accomplishments of the Mussolini regime. These accomplishments seem strong, except the usual thing happens here again in that an ordinary theater patron can’t help wondering about the other side of the stort. Everything’s so good, everything’s so great, everything’s so magnificent. Another dificulty comes from the fact that Mussolini’s lines are almost all hurrah phrases, meaning that when Italians in the theatre begin banging bande they will drown out the Thomas explanations. (Variety, March 14, 1933)