Don Camillo

Don Camillo is the main character created by the Italian writer and journalist Giovannino Guareschi (1908-1968), and is based on the historical Roman Catholic priest, WW II partisan and detainee of the concentration camps of Dachau and Mauthausen, Don Camillo Valota ^[1]. Don Camillo is one of two protagonists, the other being the communist mayor of the town, known to everyone as Peppone. The stories are set in what Guareschi refers to as a "small world" and are an excellent representation of what rural Italy was like after the second world war. Most of the Don Camillo stories came out in the weekly magazine Candido, founded by Guareschi with Giovanni Mosca. These "Little World" ("Mondo Piccolo") stories amounted to 347 in total and were put together and published in eight books, only the first three of which were published when Guareschi was still alive.

Characterisation

In the post-war years (after 1945), Don Camillo Tarocci (his full name, which he rarely uses) is the hotheaded priest of a small town in the Po valley in northern Italy. Don Camillo is a big man, tall and strong with hard fists. For the films, the town chosen to represent that of the books was Brescello (which apart from being a lovely municipality, currently has a fine museum dedicated to Don Camillo and Peppone including a Russian T34 Tank) after the production of movies based on the Guareschi's tales, but in the first story Don Camillo is introduced as the parish priest of Ponteratto.

Don Camillo talking with Jesus

Don Camillo is constantly at odds with the communist mayor, Giuseppe Bottazzi, better known as Peppone (meaning, roughly, Big Joe) and is also on very close terms with the crucifix in his town church. Through the crucifix he hears the voice of Christ.^[2] The Christ in the crucifix often has far greater understanding than Don Camillo of the troubles of the people, and has to constantly but gently reprimand the priest for his impatience.

What Peppone and Camillo have in common is an interest in the well-being of the town. They also appear to have both been partisan fighters during the war; and while Peppone makes public speeches about how "the reactionaries" ought to be shot, and Don Camillo preaches fire and brimstone against "godless Communists", they actually grudgingly admire each other. Therefore they sometimes end up working together in peculiar circumstances, though keeping up their squabbling. Thus, although he publicly opposes the Church as a Party duty, Peppone takes his gang to the church and baptizes his children there, which makes him part of Don Camillo's flock. Don Camillo also never condemns Peppone himself, but the ideology of communism which is in direct opposition to the church.

Many stories are satirical and take on the real world political divide between the Italian Roman Catholic Church and the Italian Communist Party, not to mention other worldly politics. Others are tragedies about schism, politically motivated murder, and personal vendettas in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, but not everyone necessarily likes everyone else very much.

In one story, Don Camillo visits the Soviet Union pretending to be a comrade. In another, the arrival of pop culture and motorcycles propels Don Camillo into fighting "decadence", a struggle in which he finds he has his hands full, especially when the Christ mainly smiles benevolently on the young rascals. In this later collection, Peppone is the proprietor of several profitable dealerships, riding the "Boom" years of the '60s in Italy. He is no longer quite the committed Communist he once was, but he still does not get on with Don Camillo—at least in public. Don Camillo has his own problems—the Second Vatican Council has brought changes in the Church, and a new assistant priest, who comes to be called Don Chichì, has been foisted upon him to see that Don Camillo moves with the times. Don Camillo, of course, has other ideas.

Despite their bickering, the goodness and generosity of each character can be seen during hard times. They always understand and respect each other when one is in danger, when a flood devastates the town, when death takes a love one, and in many other situations in which the two "political enemies" show their mutual respect for one another and fight side by side for the same ideals (even if they are each conditioned by their individual public roles in society).

Guareschi created a second series of novels about a similar character, Don Candido, Archbishop of Trebilie (or Trebiglie, literally three marble balls or three billiard balls). The name of this fictional town is a play on words of Trepalle (literally 'three balls'), a real town (near Livigno) whose priest was an acquaintance of Guareschi's.

Books in chronological order

The following Italian language books have been published:

• Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo. [Pub: Rizzoli, 1948] Literally: Little World: Don Camillo
• Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e il suo gregge. [Pub: Rizzoli, 1953] Literally: Little World: Don Camillo and His Flock
• Mondo Piccolo: Il compagno Don Camillo. [Pub: Rizzoli, 1963] Literally: Comrade Don Camillo

The following Italian language books have been published posthumously:

• Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi. [Pub: Rizzoli, 1969] Literally: Little World: Don Camillo and the Youth of Today
• Gente così. 1980.
• Lo spumarino pallido. 1981.
• Noi del Boscaccio. 1983.
• L'anno di Don Camillo. 1986.
• Il decimo clandestino. 1987.
• Ciao Don Camillo. 1996.
• Don Camillo e Don Chichì. 1996. The complete version of Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi
• Don Camillo e Peppone. [Pub: Rizzoli, 2007] ISBN 978-88-486-0355-3

The following US English translations have been published:

• The Little World of Don Camillo. [Pub: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1950] (Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo, translated by Una Vincenzo Troubridge.)
• Don Camillo and His Flock. [Pub: Pellegrini and Cudahy, 1952] (Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e il suo gregge, translated by Frances Frenaye.)
• Don Camillo's Dilemma. [Pub: Farrar, Strauss, and Young, Inc., 1954] (Collection of stories for English publication, translated by Frances Frenaye.)
• Don Camillo takes the Devil by the Tail. [Pub: Farrar, Strauss, and Young, Inc., 1957] (Collection of stories for English publication, translated by Frances Frenaye.)
• Comrade Don Camillo. [Pub: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc., 1964] (Mondo Piccolo: Il Compagno Don Camillo, translated by Frances Frenaye.)
• Don Camillo Meets the Flower Children. [Pub: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, Inc., 1970] (Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi, translated by L.K. Conrad.)

The following UK English translations have been published:

• The Little World of Don Camillo. [Pub: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1951] (Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo, translated by Una Vincenzo Troubridge.)
• Don Camillo and the Prodigal Son. [Pub: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1952] (Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e il suo gregge, translated by Frances Frenaye.)
• Don Camillo's Dilemma. [Pub: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1954] (Collection of stories for English publication, translated by Frances Frenaye.)
• Don Camillo and the Devil. [Pub: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1957] (Collection of stories for English publication, translated by Frances Frenaye.)
• Comrade Don Camillo. [Pub: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1964] (Mondo Piccolo: Il Compagno Don Camillo, translated by Frances Frenaye.)
• Don Camillo Meets Hell's Angels. [Pub: Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1970] (Mondo Piccolo: Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi, translated by L.K. Conrad.)

The following five were compiled into a larger book published in 1980: The World of Don Camillo,^[3] to coincide with the television adaptation:

• The Little World of Don Camillo.
• Don Camillo and the Prodigal Son.
• Don Camillo's Dilemma.
• Don Camillo and the Devil.
• Comrade Don Camillo.

Notes: The World of Don Camillo does not contain all the stories contained in the individual books. The Italian, US English and UK English publications often have a different number of stories within them thereby making it difficult to acquire a complete collection of the Don Camillo stories.

Adaptations

Films

A series of black-and-white films were made between 1952 and 1965. These were French-Italian coproductions and were simultaneously released in both languages. Don Camillo was played by French actor Fernandel, Peppone by the Italian actor Gino Cervi. The author of the original stories was involved in the scripts and helped select the main actors. To this day, the films are screened in Europe.

• The Little World of Don Camillo (fr. Le Petit monde de Don Camillo / it. Don Camillo)^[4]
• The Return of Don Camillo (fr. Le Retour de Don Camillo / it. Il Ritorno di Don Camillo)^[5]
• Don Camillo's Last Round (fr. La Grande Bagarre / it. Don Camillo e l'onorevole Peppone)^[6]
• Don Camillo: Monsignor (fr. Don Camillo Monseigneur / it. Don Camillo monsignore ma non troppo)^[7]
• Don Camillo in Moscow (fr. Don Camillo en Russie / it. Il Compagno Don Camillo)^[8]

Mario Camerini began filming the French-Italian film Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi^[9] but had to stop filming due to Fernandel's falling ill, which unfortunately resulted in his untimely death. The film was then completed in 1972 with Gastone Moschin playing the role of Don Camillo and Lionel Stander as Peppone. A Don Camillo (The world of Don Camillo) film was remade in 1983, an Italian production with Terence Hill directing and also starring as Don Camillo. Colin Blakely performed Peppone in one of his last film roles.

• The world of Don Camillo (it. Don Camillo)^[10]

Radio

A BBC Radio English language radio dramatization of The Little World of Don Camillo was broadcast in 2001 starring Alun Armstrong as Don Camillo, John Moffatt as the Bishop, Shaun Prendergast as Peppone and Joss Ackland as God, and rebroadcast in July 2010 on BBC Radio 7.

Four further BBC Radio series of The Little World of Don Camillo were made, with the final series broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2006.^[11] Ian Hogg replaced Armstrong as Don Camillo, while Prendergast, Ackland and Moffatt all continued to reprise their roles as Peppone, God and the Bishop respectively. BBC Radio 7 broadcast the second and third series throughout August and September 2010 with the fourth series beginning on the 6th October.^[12]

Television

In 1980, the BBC produced the television series The Little World of Don Camillo, based on the stories, starring Italian-German actor Mario Adorf as Don Camillo and Englishman Brian Blessed as Peppone. The narrator and Voice of the Christ was Cyril Cusack.

Novel

The Little World of Don Camillo was taken and adapted by the famous Thai writer and politician, Kukrit Pramoj, into his own 1954 novel, Phai Daeng (Red Bamboo).

Bibliography

• Riccardo F. Esposito, Don Camillo e Peppone. Cronache cinematografiche dalla Bassa Padana 1951-1965, Le Mani - Microart's, Recco (Italy), 2008 ISBN 978-88-8012-455-9

See also

Novels portal

• Marcelino pan y vino also features a talking crucifix
• Monsignor Quixote (Graham Greene novel about friendship between priest and Communist mayor)

References

1. ^ Mauthausen Komitee Österreich
2. ^ As the author notes in the preface of the first book, not the Christ, but his Christ, the voice of his conscience.
3. ^ The World of Don Camillo, Giovanni Guareschi, pub 1980 Victor Gollancz Ltd; ISBN 0-575-02933-1
4. ^ Don Camillo (1952) at the Internet Movie Database
5. ^ Le retour de Don Camillo at the Internet Movie Database
6. ^ Don Camillo e l'on. Peppone at the Internet Movie Database
7. ^ Don Camillo monsignore ma non troppo at the Internet Movie Database
8. ^ Il compagno Don Camillo at the Internet Movie Database
9. ^ Don Camillo e i giovani d'oggi at the Internet Movie Database
10. ^ Don Camillo (1984) at the Internet Movie Database
11. ^ BBC Radio 4 Website
12. ^ BBC Radio 7 Website

External links

• The Little World Wide Web Homepage of Don Camillo
• Auf den Spuren von Don Camillo und Peppone
• Don Camillo CARTOONS
• Don Camillo as film character at the Internet Movie Database