AllMovie

Luis Trenker performed double duty as star and director of the Italian swashbuckler Condottieri (The Knights). Trenker stars as Giovanni, the son of the infamous Catherine di Medici (Ethel Maggi). Nowhere near as unscrupulous or despotic as the rest of the di Medici family, Giovanni strives to make amends for past wrongs in Renaissance-era Florence. It is suggested that the hero is a 15th-century fascist -- and this being a 1937 Italian film, this means that he's one of the "good guys." Condottieri was simultaneously filmed in Italian and German versions, which may explain its peculiar political shadings.