Luci del Varietà

Despite the shared directorial credit, there's no doubt into whose filmography this cherishable oddity fits; and more than just the parade of eccentric dreamers and melancholy misfits identifies it. In the margin of its brash and tolerably sentimental story of the punctured pretensions of a troupe of second-rate travelling music-hall players, is examined a tension between 'artist' and 'showman' that not only anticipates the subsequent polarity of critical attitudes to Fellini, but also chimes perfectly with the elements of reflexive stock-taking in Casanova.