The Little World of Don Camillo (No. 1 in the Don Camillo series)

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In 1948 the Italian journalist and novelist Giovannino Guareschi wrote: Mondo piccolo : Don Camillo (translated in French en 1951 in Le petit monde de Don Camillo).

The Little World of Don Camillo (TV Series 1981– ) - IMDb The Little World of Don Camillo (TV Series 1981– ) - IMDb

I'm asking for help from you, Don Camillo, a man I hold in high esteem, not you Don Camillo the priest who I must hold in low esteem because of the very fact that you are a priest. The new Mayor, Peppone, is a particular thorn in Camillo's side, as the two have had an on-going rivalry which only escalates after the election. The joint Italian-French productions were made with the involvement of the author himself, who wrote screenplays and Italian dialog for various entries in the series; therefore, most consider them to be the official movie versions of the Don Camillo stories. I suspect the translator did a very good job for this edition -- if he could conjure laughs alongside great imagery, that's a great endorsement.

The soil there, nourished by thousands of years of effluvium from the flooding Po, is the richest in Italy. When the priest is annoyed about something, he has a verbal go at Christ on the cross in his church and, would you believe, the voice of God actually replies - or this can be interpreted as his own conscience depending on your beliefs. After an approach from Piers Dudgeon of Pilot Productions, the family authorised him to publish uncut translations into English of all the original 347 stories.

The World of Don Camillo (1984) - IMDb The World of Don Camillo (1984) - IMDb

Don Camillo is the huge, brave, impe Director Julien Duvivier has adapted episodes from Guareschi's novel and cleverly intervove them so that they make up a charming and amusing whole: a film that's heartwarming and funny, though there are no moments when you laugh out loud. Don Camillo is a parish priest and is said to have been inspired by an actual Roman Catholic priest, World War II partisan and detainee at the concentration camps of Dachau and Mauthausen, named Don Camillo Valota (1912–1998). They were issued a year or so ago on DVD in a special edition which has the original Italian version with French subtitles, or the French version with a choice of English or Spanish subtitles.It belongs to a long series of Franco-Italian (or Italo-French) coproductions which provided hundreds of movies to the cinema during 30 years after World War II. Although the conflicts between Don Camillo and Peppone always are on substantial issues, these are ultimately resolved in a good natured way; often with Peppone giving way. Really nice quirky little stories of the rivalry between the local priest and the local (communist) mayor in a small village in rural Italy. Thus, although he publicly opposes the Church as a Party duty, Peppone takes his gang to the church and baptises his children there, which makes him part of Don Camillo's flock; also, Peppone and other Communists are seen as sharing in veneration of the Virgin Mary and local Saints. But as one might expect given all the author had lived through, there is a sobering darkness to these stories too.