of in in a : at New Films in London BEST ITALIAN PRODUCTION OF LAST FOUR YEARS? i "La Strada" on Second Visit From our London Film Critic Federico Fellini's "La Strada" (at the Curzon) was under praised when it came to London a year ago as an item in an Italian film festival. It is good that it has turned up for a normal commercial run since it is probably the best Italian film of at least the last four years. Fellini. before he directed it. had made a considerable reputation as a script-writer. That may explain, to some extent, why his first film Is strong where many of its neo-realist kind are weak: its story, though fairly long, is never haphazard. It grows all , the time in quiet, poignant intensity without waste and without loose ends. Fellini, in fact, has had it both ways: his film has the advantages (the un-Italian advantages) of careful scripting and. at the same time, has all the astonishing, casual-seeming veracity which Italian neo-realist cameramen seem able to achieve wherever they turn among the landscapes, the villages, and the lives of the Italian poor The story) it tells is about strolling players and, pre-eminently, about three of this vagrantjsort a professional "strong man" who is about as close to brutishness as man can be, the simple-minded, almost daft girl who is his assistant and slave, and the talented, elfin, tight-rope walker who befriends the poor girl and is killed (not altogether by design) by the abominable strong man. Of these three principal players only one. Gtulietta Masina (the director's wife), is Italian: to describe her performance as Chap-linesque is wrong in its failure to suggest that her tragi-comic quality is very much her own, but it is right in at least indicating that she is one of the very few who can induce both tears and laughter. The other two Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart are American ; they give the performances of their lives and do so even though they speak, evidently, not with their own but with dubbed Italian voices. Dubbing, it should be remembered, is standard practice among Italian films: here, for instance, even the voice of Giulietta Masina (it is her own voice) was dubbed on to her silently shot scenes. This dubbing a money-saving device is certainly a pity ; that, in spite of it, " La Strada " should be so potent is a measure (of course) of the skill with which the reprehensible dubbing is done but. also of the film's visually dramatic effectiveness. For, even though this film is blessed with three outstanding performances, that is by no means the only or, perhaps, the chief reason why it is a great film. Scene after scene comes to mind in which Fellini, by his use of "atmospheric", but unpretentious scene-setting, and of "bit" players (most of them not professionals at all), has scored his point witness, for instance, the rustic wedding (a gathering, it might be of drunken louts devised by one of the Breughels) or the gaunt but picturesque religious procession (almost Spanish in its harshness) or the sad. foreboding farewell between a young nun and the poor, demented girl. This is an extraordinary film, a fierce tragedy but one which, for all its relentless realism, can be tender, pathetic, and, finally, touched with hope. It is a film which must not be missed. Inevitably, the rest of the week's supply is relatively small beer some of it agreeable. "Simon and Laura" (Vistavision. at the Gaumont. Havmarket) is a gav. swift, . and skilful (and. surprisingly. British) comedy which exploits the familiar joke about the married pair of plavers. doomed to plav the devoted couple on screen and stage but in 'private sauabbling like anything. The theme is old but it is very well dressed up in a new setting of television- The protagonists are Kav Kendall and Peter Finch, but Ian Carmichael and Muriel Pavlow contribute nearly as much to the fun. Muriel Box. who directed it, makes it easy to forget that her film was adapted from a nlav: there is no staginess about it. "The Tall Men" (at the Rialto) Is a great big Cinemascopic Western, excellent in its way and helped bv Clark Gable and Robert Ryan. Jane Russell is there, too consDicuousiy Maurice Chevalier is in "I Have Seven Daughters" (at the Leicester Square Cinema), which would be no more than arrant silliness were it not for Chevalier's boundless, charming, ageless vivacity.