Don Camillo en Russie (1965)

Don Camillo en Russie is an Italian-French film comedy first released in 1965, directed by Luigi Comencini.  The film stars Fernandel, Gino Cervi, Leda Gloria, Gianni Garko and Saro Urzì.  It has also been released under the title: Il Compagno Don Camillo.  Our overall rating for this film is: very poor.


Don Camillo is outraged when his long-standing rival Peppone announces that their small Italian town is to be twinned with a town in Communist Russia.  When various attempts to overturn this decision fail, Don Camillo manages to persuade his superiors to allow him to accompany Peppone on his ceremonial visit to the Russian town.  There, the Catholic priest is surprised that the country is not so religiously atheistic as he had imagined…

Fernandel appears for the last time in this fifth episode in the long-running Don Camillo saga.  Ill-health prevented the actor from reprising the role for yet another film, which is probably just as well as the series had well and truly run out of steam by this time.  Only the pleasing on-screen rapport between Fernandel and his co-star Gino Cervi prevents this entry in the series from being unbearably tiresome and stale, although it is doubtful whether anyone other than die-hard fans of Fernandel will actually enjoy the film.  Its portrayal of Soviet Russia is about as cliché-riddled as it could be and offers few opportunities for any real comedy.  The script is one of the weakest in the Don Camillo series, with the plot making very little sense.  However, the screenwriters do somehow manage to come up with a decent ending for the film, one which suggests there may have been much more to the Don Camillo-Peppone relationship than we really want to know about...

© James Travers 2005

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