Le Petit Monde de Don Camillo

Le Petit monde de Don Camillo is a 1952 Italian film directed by Julien Duvivier, starring Fernandel and Gino Cervi. It was the first film in the "Don Camillo" series, which made Fernandel an international star. The film was based on the novel Don Camillo by author Giovannino Guareschi.

This film was produced by Francinex (Paris) and Rizzoli Amato (Rome). It belongs to a long series of Franco-Italian (or Italo-French) coproductions which provided hundreds of movies to the cinema during 30 years after World War II. In Le Petit Monde de Don Camillo (released in Italy as simply Don Camillo) one of the characteristics is a certain balance between the two countries, since the original author, the place of action, and one of the two stars are Italian, while the director, the screenwriters, and the first star are French. The crew and the rest of the cast are also equally divided between both nations.

Note however that more often, a bit like in pop music the Lennon-McCartney duet, the Franco-Italian films can be allotted to one or the other country, if we only consider the artistic aspect, cooperation being primarily financial. To satisfy the two parts, they used to incorporate into casting of a film depending to a country, some actors of the other one. Among a lot of famous exemples, we can quote "Il Gattopardo" (English: The Leopardo) a typical italian culte film of Luchino Visconti, co-starring Alain Delon, or "La Cage aux Folles" (US remake: The Birdcage) a typical french culte comedy of Edouard Molinaro co-starring Ugo Tognazzi. Other exemples: the Italian "Rocco e i suoi fratelli" (English: Rocco and His Brothers"), or the French "Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob" (English: The Mad Adventures of Rabbi Jacob).

External links

• Le Petit Monde de Don Camillo at the Internet Movie Database