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Flashing credits à la My Man Godfrey, then music-hall posters for the smiling hunchback. The Fellini-Lattuada saltimbanques include a glass-munching fakir, a plush odalisque and bikini-clad hoofers, the impresario (Peppino De Filippo) takes the seedy trade seriously and a soubrette's flirtation even more so. "Tramps? We create art here!" The ragtag company is beset by squabbles, debts, jeering audiences and leaky roofs, still the hopeful (Carla Del Poggio) jumps in with the chorines and becomes a star when her skirt falls off mid-number. Beguiled as would-be lover and would-be Svengali, the boss ditches his fiancée (Giulietta Masina) for the novice, his pose at the ritzy restaurant is promptly pricked by the vaudevillian who sees "il pinguino" next to the comely careerist. "All hail, Delusion." (A splendid little joke has him mistaking the clanging of a trolley for applause, he bows reflexively and misses his ride.) The tale of the wily debutant usurping the seasoned pro's spot is perversely suited for an avid young director's beginning, though Fellini and Lattuada are harmonious in their affectionate eye for tawdry dreamers. Buñuel certainly remembers the vignette of hungry guests on an endless road, Masina the plucky impressionist dons Garibaldi's beard and saber to quell an obnoxious heckler. In as sordid a line as showbiz, it pays to create theater out of life's miseries—thrown out by his own discovery, the forlorn manager wanders the vacant Roman streets at night and puts together a new troupe with the strays he meets. (American trumpeter and Brazilian gypsy and cowboy sharpshooter, "better than Becket!") The synchronicity with Mankiewicz's All About Eve has been noted, the stylistic debt to Wellman's Lady of Burlesque not so much. With Dante Maggio, Gina Mascetti, Checco Durante, Giulio Cali, Carlo Romano, Giacomo Furia, and John Kitzmiller. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |