The Golden Coach

Camilla (Anna Magnani) is the star of a travelling commedia dell'arte troupe that arrives in Peru in the early 1700s, and three men soon want her: a viceroy, a nobleman and a bullfighter. Her company keeps playing its stage parts while the courtship moves from the theatre into the colonial court. Jean Renoir, working from Prosper Mérimée's play, sets Vivaldi's music against painted-looking interiors that make the whole film feel like a stage.