People are voting emotionally.

Lack of good storyline.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Having read all of Giovanni Guareschi's Don Camillo stories, several times, I was very pleased to find "The Little World of Don Camillo" on YouTube. And I was further pleased to find it rather faithful to the original work by Guareschi.It's hard, usually, at least for me, to render a total and impartial judgment of a dubbed movie, but in my opinion the acting was superb, the casting was excellent, and the presentation of Guareschi's vision of this Po River Valley village was close enough to perfect.I see at IMDb that more modern versions of some Don Camillo stories have been made, and I hope to see them. Eventually.But first I want to see all the Fernandel versions. And I want to urge everyone to seek out the books and read them, either before or after seeing the movies. Especially read "Comrade Don Camillo," which is the only complete novel of the series.I have read "Comrade Don Camillo" several times, and every time I am moved to tears at some of the scenes, and to laughter at others, and to tears by the overall tone and beauty.Guareschi was, and might still be, the largest-selling Italian author in the world, and in my opinion deservedly. His own history is well worth reading, even in this post-Soviet Union era.

By the way, the version I watched was not dubbed but subtitled. I mention this because one of the reviewers talked about seeing a dubbed version but this was not available on the DVD I watched. And, if it had been, I would have chosen the captions regardless.I did an odd thing. I accidentally put the second Don Camillo film ahead of the first one on my Netflix queue. So I saw the second one first. This is not that bad a thing, however, as the second film recapped what happened in the first film when it began. But, because I loved the second film so much, I couldn't wait to see the first.This movie begins with the town in an uproar. It's a heavily divided town and the Communists have just won the election for mayor. The old guard is quite unhappy and the unhappiest is the town's priest, Don Camillo (Fernandel). And, through most of the film, he and the Mayor butt heads and fight like dogs. It's all quite silly but enjoyable.An odd thing about the film, just as in the second, is that Don Camillo talks to Jesus--and Jesus talks back to him through the crucifix in the church! Some might find it a bit sacrilegious, but it seemed to be handled well. Also, the town's struggles is a good microcosm of post-war Italy, as the country was strongly divided between Communists and those who wanted a right-wing republic--a problem which didn't really get resolved until the 1980s.All in all, a very good film that I enjoyed. However, please watch the next one--it gets even better.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the films I have seen made by Julien Duvivier and this one is no exception. It concerns the rivalry between the parish priest and the communist mayor of a small village somewhere in Italy. When the priest is annoyed about something, he has a verbal go at Christ on the cross in his church and, would you believe, the voice of God actually replies - or this can be interpreted as his own conscience depending on your beliefs. I did not know that the film had been made in English and learns this on reading these boards. In fact, the logical language for the film is Italian as all the action takes place in Italy so it's a bit strange to hear them all speaking in French or English. The problem is that whilst nearly all the actors in the film are Italian, the priest, Don Camillo, is played by French actor Fernandel. I think there are five or six films in the series but numbers 1 and 2 are purported to be the best. They were issued a year or so ago on DVD in a special edition which has the original Italian version with French subtitles, or the French version with a choice of English or Spanish subtitles. There are also a lot of bonuses on the DVD which teach us a lot about Italy, Gino Cervi and Fernandel. Some of the most delicious moments in the film occur when Don Camillo is complaining to God who answers him and tries to temper his anger. Fernandel had a very expressive face and was ideally suited to this character. Indeed, long after his death, the personnage of Don Camillo has even appeared on adverts for Panzani pasta and with an actor sporting a face almost identical to that of Fernandel. It appears to me that the latter was a much loved actor in France many years ago and I do admit to finding his equine countenance most endearing. The film is therefore a minor masterpiece for all those viewers sensitive to this type of character study.

(Since I originally submitted this review to the IMDb, an English-subtitled DVD of "The Little World of Don Camillo" -- and of its first sequel, "The Return of Don Camillo" -- has become available in the US. However, I still think that a fan might be interested looking at in the old dubbed version, if he or she can find it.)This film is the first in a series of five shot in the 1950s and 60s based on Giovanni Guareschi's well-loved "Don Camillo" stories. The joint Italian-French productions were made with the involvement of the author himself, who wrote screenplays and Italian dialog for various entries in the series; therefore, most consider them to be the official movie versions of the Don Camillo stories. Guareschi is quoted as warmly approving of the way that stars Fernandel and Gino Cervi brought to life his two famous protagonists, the battling parish priest and Communist mayor of a small village in post-war Italy. Today, more than forty years after the series was completed, the films are still played on European television, dubbed into a variety of languages. Unfortunately, however, they are all but unknown to English-speaking fans (particularly American ones) of Giovanni Guareschi and his wonderful characters.But this need not be, for "Le Petit Monde de Don Camillo" (1951) does exist in an English-dubbed version. The only one of the five films to get the treatment, it is quite well done (once you get around the fact that it's dubbed in the first place). "King of Dubbers" Robert Rietti (Rietty) takes on the roles of both Don Camillo and Peppone, while none other than Orson Welles provides the voice-over narration and, in that capacity, the voice of Christ which Don Camillo hears in answer to his prayers. The narration is intrusive at times (they got their money's worth out of Welles), but the movie overall is a faithful adaptation and interweaving of some of the more memorable early Don Camillo tales.As the story opens, we meet hot-tempered Don Camillo complaining to the Lord about the recent election of the town's Communist contingent. The new Mayor, Peppone, is a particular thorn in Camillo's side, as the two have had an on-going rivalry which only escalates after the election. Conflicts abound: Peppone wants to have his son baptized "Lenin," but Don Camillo has other ideas. The priest has been trying for years to scrape together the money for a town recreation center, then suddenly the Communists tap an unorthodox source of funds and build their own "People's Palace." Peppone wants to fly the Red banner at a church procession, and he doesn't take Don Camillo's veto well. Don Camillo invests heart and soul into a soccer match between the church's team and the Party's, and he doesn't understand why the Lord declines to take a side. The Communists call a strike against the local landowners, but Don Camillo is determined to save the neglected farm animals. And somehow, amid all the sometimes humorous, sometimes serious conflict, a Catholic "Juliet" and a Communist "Romeo" have fallen in love. Can priest and mayor lay down their fists and help them?I should add, for the *very* knowledgeable Don Camillo film fan, that the dubbed version of "Little World" is based on the Italian rather than the French cut of the original movie (director Julien Duvivier and the mostly bilingual cast shot the two versions simultaneously). Thus, certain scenes that appeared in the French release but were excised by the censors in stricter Italy will not be in the English version.I believe the dubbed version of "The Little World of Don Camillo" is still available in vintage video catalogs (that's where I got my VHS edition in 1998), and it's worth looking for, especially for fans of the warm and whimsical tales on which it is based.