The town's Communist party led by Peppone has just won the majority of seats within the city council, an event which they exploit for propagandistic purposes – and with some non-vocal, but church bell-assisted protest by the outraged Don Camillo, the spiritual leader of the town's Christian political party –, when an unexpected event puts an instant stop to this arising conflict: Peppone has just added a new member, a son, to his family, and following a personal and pugilistic appeal by Peppone himself (as well as some admonishment from Christ) to a reluctant Don Camillo, the child is baptized in Camillo's church.
When their cause finds no support with neither Peppone as the mayor, nor with Camillo as a priest, the two lovers decide to commit a double suicide.
But during the combined wedding and house-warming festivities for the now-finished community hall and kindergarten, Don Camillo takes offense at one of Peppone's better throws at an Aunt Sally stall, which results in a public mass brawl.
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.