Nothing was said to me about the censorship problems with Totò e Carolina. I had to read it in the paper. (…) I must say though, that when I saw the film that summer morning, I had the impression that Monicelli had overdone it a bit, that he’d gone a little too far with that country priest who was a little morbid and seemed almost homosexual. An actor from the Veneto region played the part of the priest, Gianni Cavalieri – who would die only a few years later – but I didn’t know him yet. The priest we had imagined was simply a bit of a weasel, someone who tried to get by without working too hard. There was a scene that I had written completely, set in Caccavallo’s wretched home. There isn’t a trace of that scene in the film, or in the material that’s been recovered here. A prayer by Totò who, a little angry with God Almighty, turned to Him more or less like this: “Oh Father, you know, a true gentleman doesn’t treat women like that (…)”. Another part of the script that was lost is the part created by Flaiano, which I developed: Caccavallo, who is a jailer, opens up to art thanks to meeting a sculptor in jail. A lot of Veneto dialect ended up in the film, and I’m definitely the one who put it there. I was the first of us from Veneto who went down to Rome. The others, Parise and Brass, hadn’t arrived yet. I really liked playing with the Veneto dialect of my old partisan stories. From the censor reports, it’s clear that what was considered as threatened in the film was the dignity of the police. Scelba had raised the level to a direct confrontation with the left. That’s why all those jeeps were untouchable.

Rodolfo Sonego talking to Tatti Sanguineti, 25.04.2000