Synopsis
In Italy, Checco Dal Monte manages a troupe of traveling performers with plenty of heart but minimal talent. At a small town engagement, he encounters the starry-eyed, gorgeous Lily Antonelli, and hires her as a dancer on the show. Vivacious Lily quickly sells out crowds and earns the resentment of Checco's mistress, Melina Amour, but the fledgling performer has far bigger ambitions and soon sets her sights on a higher-profile role.
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Cast
- Peppino De FilippoChecco Dal Monte
- Carla Del PoggioLiliana "Lilly" Antonelli
- Giulietta MasinaMelina Amour
- John KitzmillerTrumpet player Johnny
- Folco LulliAdelmo Conti, l'amant de Liliana
- Dante MaggioRemo
- Checco DuranteTheater Owner
- Gina MascettiValeria del Sole
- Giulio CalìMagician Edison Will
- Silvio BagoliniBruno Antonini
Recommendations
- 88
Slant Magazine
With its tale of a peripatetic band of low-rent theater types, Variety Lights incorporates many, if not most, of Fellini’s signature themes. - 88
USA Today
Federico Fellini's first film (co-directed with Alberto Lattuada) would make a compatible living room double bill with FF's 1986 Ginger and Fred...Pleasing all the way through. [17 Mar 1989, p.3D] - 83
The A.V. Club
A moving, funny, formative work that should be of interest to more than just Fellini aficionados. - 83
The Playlist
Before there was such a thing as a “Fellini” movie, “Variety Lights” established what that would look like as he moved up the ladder in Italy’s movie industry, through humor and melancholy. - 80
Los Angeles Times
Like a preliminary sketch for a vast and splendid mural, it unfolds Fellini's wonderful vision of life in all its joy and sadness, hope and fear, triumph and defeat, that emerges fully in the later movies. [20 May 2004, p.E13] - 80
The New Yorker
It's a very simple and, in some ways, tawdry film, but Fellini shows his extraordinary talent for the dejected setting, the shabby performer, the fat old chorine, the singer who will never hit the high note. - 75
TV Guide Magazine
Even in this early effort the whimsical, odd world of Fellini comes dancing forth. - 70
The New York Times
As a straightforward comedy-drama about the vicissitudes of the principals in a small-time tab show or traveling vaudeville troupe, this is wholesome corn. But it is highly palatable fare, which, in its story line, hews more to the type of films subsequently made by Mr. Lattuada.
