Don Camillo in Moscow

In a small Italian town the priest Don Camillo and the communist mayor Peppone have been fighting for years. In this film Peppone goes to the Soviet Union with a friendship delegation. Don Camillo will not leave him to it: he disguises himself, joins the party and travels as far as Moscow. There both of them meet something they did not expect and have to look after each other. Luigi Comencini directs. Fernandel plays Don Camillo and Gino Cervi plays Peppone. The series rests on Giovannino Guareschi's stories and began in the fifties; these are the best known films to treat Italy's postwar political division as comedy. The idea is that the two men need each other. The priest and the communist are ideological opponents who grew up in the same town and defend each other in a crisis, and the narrative repeats that in every film. What distinguishes this instalment is the location. The quarrel leaves the town for the first time and the depiction of the Soviet Union becomes the comic material: the bureaucracy, the official itinerary and the collective farm. Fernandel was a French actor and played Don Camillo in every film of the series; he did not speak Italian and worked through dubbing. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Italian comedy and Cold War satire. Who it is not for: the political context belongs to its period, the template repeats, and the relationship does not quite land without the earlier films.