The Little World of Don Camillo

1952 1h 47m IT

🙌

7.6

BANGER

★7.6TMDB · 320

Comedy

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

In a village of the Po valley where the earth is hard and life miserly, the priest and the communist mayor are always fighting to be the head of the community. If in secret, they admired and liked each other, politics still divided them as it is dividing the country. And when the mayor wants his "People's House"; the priest wants his "Garden City" for the poor. Division exist between the richest and the poorest, the pious and the atheists and even between lovers. But if the people are hard as the country, they are good in the bottom of there heart.

“Some stories are better left unspoiled.”

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Cast

Fernandel
Don Camillo Tarocci
Gino Cervi
Giuseppe Bottazzi "Peppone"
Vera Talchi
Gina Filotti
Franco Interlenghi
Mariolino Brusco
Saro Urzì
Brusco
Charles Vissières
Il Vescovo
Sylvie
Signora Cristina
Clara Auteri Pepe
Clara Auteri

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Julien Duvivier
Writers: Julien Duvivier, René Barjavel
Languages: Italian
Countries: France, Italy

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

74 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: France, Italy.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Don Camillo Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Julien Duvivier, shot by Nicolas Hayer. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Alessandro Cicognini. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Maria Rosada shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Fernandel and Gino Cervi and Vera Talchi carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0043918 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Julien Duvivier directs. Nicolas Hayer behind the camera. Alessandro Cicognini scores. Maria Rosada cuts. Produced in France, Italy. Dialogue in Italian.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

174 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
2International production across 2 countries: France, Italy.
3Part of the "Don Camillo Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
4Directed by Julien Duvivier, shot by Nicolas Hayer. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Alessandro Cicognini. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor Maria Rosada shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Fernandel and Gino Cervi and Vera Talchi carry the top of the cast.
8IMDB entry: tt0043918 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
9Classified under 13 themes, including "strike", "cheating", "italy", "village".

The technical file

Cinematography: Nicolas Hayer
Original score: Alessandro Cicognini
Editing: Maria Rosada
Production design: Virgilio Marchi
Makeup / hair: Leandro Marini
Runtime: 107 min · 1h 47m
Status: Released
Original language: IT
IMDB: The Little World of Don Camillo (1952)

Part of

Don Camillo Collection

The adventures of Don Camillo and Peppone

Also by

Julien Duvivier

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2025-01-06
★ 7/10
Fernandel is great in this comedy drama set after the end of the Second World War in Italy. He's the eponymous churchman who is watching his country at a crossroads between the old and the new ways of thinking. The town has just elected a communist mayor, nicknamed "Peppone" (Gino Cervi) and it seems that just about everyone barring himself and the town's former school mistress "Cristina" (Sylvie) is supporting the new regime. The two men spar like rutting stags, with the former using his considerable array of church bells to drown out his rival's political speechifying and the latter doing whatever he can to thwart the priest's dreams of establishing a garden for the poor - of which there are quite a few! Luckily, we have an invisible narrator for this exercise who adopts a god-like position on the shoulder of "Camillo" reminding him to live to the vows he took to his church despite his inclination for fisticuffs and disputations with just about everyone, but that is becoming much harder when rumours of some Nazi cash reach his ears and he wants some of it for his project. The mayor wants to build an edifice to demonstrate the power of the people and their new found freedoms, and that's what he wants to do with the reportedly 10 million Lire. Can they compromise? What's becomes clear to us is that there is a lot of bravado going on here, and when it comes down to it the two men are actually remarkably and stubbornly similar. They both want what's best for their village, their congregation/electorate and both are conscious that this is a delicate time for their nation and co-operation is going to be vital, even if it's grudgingly given. The novel from Giovanni Guareschi upon which this is based offers quite a gentle analysis of post-war, and soon to be post-kingdom, Italy and looks at the roles of the church and it's traditions in a subtly thought-provoking fashion. Director Julien Duvivier has managed to capture quite a bit of that thrust and incorporates it engagingly into a series of scenarios that do raise a smile, but also an eyebrow too. It's good fun, this, with plenty of daftness to illustrate the power of belligerence - in all it's glory!

Production companies