Don Camillo en Russie (1965)
Directed by Luigi Comencini

Film Review

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...

Film Synopsis

Don Camillo can scarcely believe his ears when he receives the news that, thanks to the machinations of his arch-rival Peppone, his Italian town is to be twinned with a village in Communist Russia.  This is something that must be thwarted at all costs, and with God on his side, the parish priest is certain of victory.  Things get off to a promising start when Peppone agrees to hold a referendum, allowing the town's inhabitants to decided whether they want to go along with the twinning or not.

Providence again smiles on Don Camillo when he comes across two Russian students who have nothing positive to say about the Communist regime which they believe is a blight on their country.  Alas, their testimony proves not to be persuasive enough for the ordinary man in the street, so the referendum goes Peppone's way.  After an aborted hunger strike, Don Camillo persuades his bishop to allow him to join his enemy as part of a delegation to Russia.  On his arrival on the other side of the Iron Curtain, the priest is surprised not only by the warmth of the reception he receives, but also by the fact that not everyone is a staunch atheist.  Maybe Christian belief and Communism aren't so incompatible as he had thought...