Don Camillo e l'on. Peppone (1955)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Carmine Gallone

Writers:

René Barjavel (dialogue) (French version)
Giovanni Guareschi (screenplay)

Release Date:

30 September 1955 (West Germany)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot Keywords:

Politics | Church | Priest | Election | Sequel

Cast

Fernandel	...	Don Camillo
Gino Cervi	...	Giovanni "Peppone" Bottazzi
Claude Sylvain	...	Clotilde
Leda Gloria	...	La signora Bottazzi, moglie di Peppone / Madame Botazzi, la femme de Peppone
Umberto Spadaro	...	Bezzi
Memmo Carotenuto	...	Lo Spiccio
Saro Urzì	...	Brusco, il parucchiere / Brusco, le coiffeur
Guido Celano	...	Il maresciallo
Luigi Tosi	...	Il prefetto
Marco Tulli	...	Lo Smilzo
Giuseppe Vinaver
Lamberto Maggiorani
Manuel Gary
Giovanni Onorato	...	Il Lungo
Renzo Giovampietro

Also Known As:

Don Camillo e l'onorevole Peppone (Italy)
Don Camillo's Last Round
La grande bagarre de Don Camillo (France)

Runtime:

France:97 min | West Germany:98 min

Country:

France | Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Finland:S | West Germany:12 | Sweden:Btl | Argentina:Atp

Filming Locations:

Brescello, Reggio Emilia, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Company:

Rizzoli Film

Trivia:

French censorship visa #17361/D.

Movie Connections:

Follows Don Camillo (1952)

Electioneering in Brescello

This is the middle episode of the Don Camillo / Peppone saga and probably my favorite along with DC Monsignore ma non troppo.

Peppone, hardened mayor in Brescello, the small village on the Po river, aspires to become senator. Neither before or after WWII, where he fought against the Germans and fascists, he never went seriously to school, so he needs (at least) a diploma. Believe it or not, don Camillo helps Peppone to pass the examination (with the forecast of moving to Rome) prompting him the solution of geometry's problem. As implicit reward, Peppone writes a composition about "A man I'll never forget": obviously don Camillo, when Peppone was a resistant in WWII, and don Camillo the young military chaplain. Getting the diploma was the first step. The election campaign just started and the two big parties - Christian-democratic and Communist, forgetful of respective favors, settle down an electoral "war of the words", mean tricks (culminating with the famous horny Peppone/Lucifer) and easy propaganda.

Two things still shock today. 1) Giovannino Guareschi (the writer/author of don Camillo's saga) wasn't anti-communist at all, but he never hid the real nature, sanguine, gross, mentally brainwashed of communists (the same stating how lush and rich was the Stalin's Russia). He was a partisan, stop. He fought the fascists and the Nazis, but he never "fell in love" with Stalin or Krushev. Guareschi understood primarily what needed to Italy to rise from the ashes of war. 2) Communists in Italy (today) still resemble the 40s and 50s era, and fight their propaganda still means to be a bigot or an obscurantist. Guareschi tales, therefore, seem written today in many aspects. Not for the rural and tried Italy, but its never-ending inability to find a political barycenter.