“La Strada” uses cinema so expertly, it creates the kind of impact and emotional experience you can only get from a movie. A landmark in Italian cinema, this powerhouse of a film became one of the world's most influential films, making Fellini and his wife (the film's star Giulietta Masina) internationally famous.

He does part of the acting for the actors." Since Quinn and Basehart did not speak Italian, both were dubbed in the original release.

La Strada is structurally, and titularly, a road film; “la strada” literally means “the road” in Italian.

A melding of the neorealism in Fellini's past with the fable elements that were to dominate his future, La Strada is basically a three-character drama about the loneliness and the elusiveness of love. Using the grit of neorealism to combat any excessive sentimentality, Fellini...