Trivia / Don Camillo

aka: Little World Of Don Camillo

Books

• Write Who You Know: A number of characters are based on people Guareschi knew; most notably Signora Cristina, the old schoolmarm (who also appears in the 1950s films), is a loving portrait of the author's mother, who was a schoolteacher herself.

Films

• California Doubling: No scene from Don Camillo in Moscow was actually shot in Soviet Russia.
• Died During Production: A sixth film for the series, fr. Don Camillo et les contestataires/ it. Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi (Don Camillo and the Red-Haired Girl), was in the making in 1970-1971 when Fernandel collapsed while shooting due to cancer. He died a month later, the movie unfinished. Out of respect for him, the studio completely remade the movie with different actors — Gino Cervi refused to make a new film without Fernandel. The unfinished movie with Fernandel and Cervi has never been seen, the reels are thought to have been destroyed.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Italian priest Don Camillo, played by Frenchman Fernandel. Who didn't do anything to hide his South-Eastern France accent in the French dub (he was dubbed in Italian for the Italian version). Interestingly, this means that in the French dub, pretty much all the actors were dubbed with that same accent, which makes it one of the very, very few French dubs that don't solely feature the typically so-called "neutral" (Parisian) French accent — Jesus is practically the only one who doesn't have a South-Eastern France accent — and weirdly makes the films sound like Marcel Pagnol-ish works as a result.
  • American actor of Russian-Jewish descent Lionel Stander as the Italian Peppone in Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi (1972).
• He Also Did: The screenplay of the 1950s-1960s films was written by French writer René Barjavel, who is much more famous for his Science Fiction novels.
• Reality Subtext: Entire villages getting flooded by a rise in the water level of the Po river in the sixth film comes off as a swan song for the film series itself, with the death of Fernandel prior to the reshooting as a point of no return.
• Same Language Dub: The films were all shot in Italian language and Fernandel was dubbed in Italian. For the French version, Fernandel redid all his lines in French and everyone else was dubbed in French by other actors (Jacques Eyser voiced Gino Cervi, most notably).
• Tourist Bump: The Italian town of Brescello, which served as the set for the film series, has statues of both Peppone and Don Camillo on the town square, and dedicated a museum to these two characters, which houses many props from the movies.
• Troubled Production: Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi. The death of Fernandel mid-shooting and the subsequent exit of Gino Cervi forced the producers to reshoot the movie entirely with new actors. The film was also reshot in colours.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Gino Cervi was originally cast as Don Camillo, but then the makers of the first film were stumped to find a good Peppone. For a time, Giovannino Guareschi considered playing the communist mayor himself (he certainly looked the part with his mustache), but then someone suggested Camillo be played by Fernandel, and the part of Peppone was eventually given to Cervi.
  • How would a sixth movie with Fernandel have looked instead of the one that was made instead after his passing (Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi)? Word is that the movie was finished anywhere between 30% and 80%. From a set interview of Fernandel made about six months before his death, it appears that the basic story and thematics (major social and religious changes of The '60s) were kept in.

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