His vignettes fill his movie with beauty, sadness, humor and understanding. Although there are English subtitles and the voices of the Messrs. Quinn and Basehart have been dubbed into Italian, "La Strada" needs no fuller explanations. It speaks forcefully, poetically and often movingly in a universal language.

ABOUT THE FILM: In Italian with English subtitles. There has never been a face quite like that of Giulietta Masina. Her husband, the legendary Federico Fellini, directs her as Gelsomina in LA STRADA, the film that launched them both to international stardom.

Gelsomina, an apparently somewhat simple-minded, dreamy young woman, learns that her sister Rosa has died after going on the road with the strongman Zampanò. Now the man has returned a year later to ask her mother if Gelsomina will take Rosa's place.

A melding of the neorealism in Fellini's past with the fable elements that were to dominate his future, La Strada is basically a three-character drama about the loneliness and the elusiveness of love.