Comrade Don Camillo

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Movie
German title Comrade Don Camillo
Original title Il compagno Don Camillo
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1965
length 105 minutes
Rod
Director Luigi Comencini
script Leo Benvenuti
Piero De Bernardi
music Alessandro Cicognini
camera Armando Nannuzzi
cut Nino Baragli
occupation

Comrade Don Camillo is the fifth film in the Don Camillo and Peppone series. It is based on the book of the same name by Giovanni Guareschi and is the last completed film in the series with the two main actors Fernandel and Gino Cervi .

action

After endless arguments, the village of Mayor Peppone and Don Camillo gets a partner church in the Soviet Union . When Peppone and the other comrades want to go to the other side of the Iron Curtain for the celebrations , Don Camillo wants to join them. He succeeds in doing this by threatening to make an attempted infidelity on the mayor's wife known otherwise. Don Camillo procures false papers; he is now Comrade Tarocci. Only a traveling journalist is left in the dark about the true identity of the “priest eater”. Cultural exchange events are planned in Russia: ballet, opera, a fishing competition and various festivals.

Shortly after the Italian delegation arrived in Russia, Khrushchev fell and the group was held in the hotel without explanation. The villagers are worried about the political world situation and are even thinking of fleeing to an Italian consulate after they have shared the presents they have brought with them (Italian wine, Parma ham and cheese) among themselves. Fortunately, everything turns out for the better and the "Italian comrades" are treated kindly again.

Brusco had a brother who died in the 1941 war in the Don area, but of whom he is ashamed because he belonged to the fascists , while Brusco is a fiery communist. However, he promised his old mother that he would light a candle on the grave of his fallen brother. Don Camillo helps him find the job.

The priest of the Russian village lives underground because he is afraid of the local mayor, an arch-communist who turned the church into a granary. Don Camillo convinces him to take confession from the mayor's mother and to baptize his numerous children. He also trains the priest in fistfighting so that he can face the mayor at the same level in the future.

The journalist who traveled with him starts an affair with the pretty Russian interpreter Nadja. On the last evening of their stay, however, Don Camillo prevents the carnal completion of the affair, which moves the reporter at the last moment not to fly back with the others, but to stay with the girl he wants to marry and then take with him to Italy.

In order to prevent the Russian mayor from going home early after the opera (and there to surprise Don Camillo and the Russian priest with their religious acts), Peppone asks him to have a vodka contest: Peppone remains the winner, but has so drank a lot that he is sick and a doctor has to be called. He gives him pills and has him sign an admission request for the hospital. Peppone is overcome with great sadness, he doesn’t want to be “left alone like a dog to die far from home” and swallows the whole box of pills. The next day, you prepare for your return trip to Italy. However, Peppone is held back by the doctor, the ambulance for him has arrived. Peppone protests, but the signed application is held in front of him and so he reluctantly lets himself be delivered.

While the ambulance is leaving, Don Camillo makes fun of a Russian officer, believing that he does not understand anything. However, he replies in perfect Italian: “Your Reverence, our intelligence service is the best in the world: we have known who you are since you left. But we have no secrets from anyone. Tell that to the Pope . Tell him it's not that bad with us. Tell him to visit us. Have a good trip! ”Don Camillo is both shocked and amazed and makes his way to the plane. So the group returns to Italy without Peppone and the journalists.

Weeks pass and postcards from Peppone arrive from Russia. He received a blood wash , new teeth and other medical treatments. Then there are no more postcards and Peppone's trail is lost. Finally, the Bishop selects Don Camillo to lead an ecclesiastical delegation to the United States . To Camillo's surprise, Peppone also belongs to this group, disguised as a monsignor with false papers and without his mustache. Peppone is also well prepared for a trip with priests: he carries the writings of Karl Marx with him under a cover of the breviary , just as Don Camillo had the breviary with him camouflaged under a Lenin cover in the Soviet Union . Don Camillo asks how he intends to convince him to take him with him and not to betray him. Peppone shows him a photo taken in Russia that shows him with a hammer and sickle under his arm while he is kissed on the mouth by an attractive Russian girl. “What would the bishop say about this photo?” Asks Peppone. Don Camillo gives in and takes Peppone with him.

At the end, Don Camillo and Peppone (disguised as a priest) arrive at the airport, where the journalist and Nadja have just returned from Russia and are quite shocked to see the two “communists” in their priestly robes.

The film shows in a special way Guareschi's attitude, who was a staunch anti-communist all his life, but always chose the path of subtle satire for his criticism of Marxism. The Soviet Union is not portrayed here as the “empire of evil”, but as a country like any other. In this sense, the last sentence of the Russian official at the end of the film can also be taken as a conclusion.

Reviews

  • "(...); Delicious typing, buxom situation comedy, Fernandel's wonderful horse grin. ”(Rating: 2½ out of 4 possible stars = above average) - Adolf Heinzlmeier and Berndt Schulz : Lexicon“ Films on TV ”, 1990

DVD release

  • Comrade Don Camillo . Fifth film of the collector's edition (5-DVD set) Don Camillo & Peppone . Kinowelt Home Entertainment 2003

literature

Edits for the stage

  • Riccardo F. Esposito : Don Camillo e Peppone. Cronache cinematografiche dalla Bassa Padana 1951–1965 , Le Mani - Microart's, Recco (Genoa, Liguria, Italy), 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Comrade Don Camillo. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  2. ^ Adolf Heinzlmeier, Berndt Schulz: Lexicon "Films on TV" (expanded new edition). Rasch and Röhring, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 3-89136-392-3 , p. 294