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A small travelling company goes from town to town. There is singing, dancing and comedy on stage; all of it mediocre. Checco runs the company and does the same turns every night. In one town Liliana comes backstage; young, eager, wanting to join. Checco takes her on. When she goes on stage the house comes alive. Checco sees it and sets about leaving his own company to start something new with her. Melina, who has been with him for years, is left behind. In Rome things do not go as he wanted. Federico Fellini directs with Alberto Lattuada; it is Fellini's first work as director. Peppino De Filippo plays Checco, Carla Del Poggio plays Liliana and Giulietta Masina plays Melina. It is an Italian production, made in 1950. Giulietta Masina was Fellini's wife; Carla Del Poggio was Lattuada's. The film drew no interest on release and failed commercially. The matter it treats is the difference between talent and eagerness; nobody is as good as they want to be and the film shows that without mercy. The narrative is about what happens backstage; costumes, arguments over pay, hotel rooms and days without food. Fellini returned to travelling performers in later films and the interest starts here. The narrative builds Checco as ridiculous and pitiable; the man sees himself as larger than he is. The ending is circular; the company is on the road again and nothing has changed. Its limit is age; the narrative is simple, the pace uneven, and the characters conventional. Who it is for: viewers who like Fellini's cinema and Italian classics. Who it is not for: it is old, small in scale, and the ending sad.