This film was co-directed by Fellini and is one of his earliest works (his first directing, though he'd written some scripts for earlier films). Most of his films through the 1950s were very straight forward dramas and many of them were extremely touching and unforgettable. This movie fits in very nicely with these films such as THE WHITE SHEIK, I VITELLONI and LA STRADA. If you are looking for the symbolic Fellini like in 8 1/2 or the weird Fellini such as in SATYRICON or CASSANOVA, then this movie might just leave you flat because it is such a "normal" film. As for me, this is NOT a bad thing, as I have long preferred his earlier directorial work. It's not as complicated or confusing as his later films but also shows amazing style and grace--as well as a great ability to create touching characters.

This simple film is about a 4th-rate traveling variety show. They are perpetually broke and most of this is due to the group's distinct lack of talent. Despite this, they have a certain pride in their work and some see themselves as artists--though their audiences thought otherwise. Into this rather bleak existence comes a young and seemingly naive young woman (Lily) who wants to be a star. Unlike the audience, Lily is captivated by the actors and longs to join them. The only one in the group who seems interested in having her join them, though, is the troop's director--and it's only because the lady is so young and shapely. Despite the lady's lack of experience, when she does make her debut it is a success--mostly because the men in the audience liked to see her in various stages of undress.

Since the group is now a success, the director sees his new ingénue as his ticket to fame and he no longer pays attention to his long-time girlfriend (played by Fellini's wife, Giulietta Masina). He puts all his creative energy into marketing Lily and his efforts are pretty much wasted--as Lily is much better in marketing herself since men go mad when they see her on stage. Eventually, and not surprisingly, Lily outgrows the silly old director and he's left with no one, as his traveling troop left him because they were tired of being ignored. What happens next you'll have to see for yourself, but the film is an excellent and interesting character study--not so much of Lily, but of the foolish director.

Well acted, interesting and fascinating--this is a lovely film worth your time.

What starts off for around the first /25 minutes seeming like it could be a, well, Neo-Realist Showgirls, with in place of a gaudy Vegas show a ragtag bunch of traveling end-of-the-line Vaudeville performers and the Elizabeth Berkley here a doe-eyed young woman named Liliana who sees a performance one night and looks to join up and do anything she can - maybe looking to usurp the Gina Gershon star of the show (here a fiery and beautiful Giulietta Masina as Melina) soon turns much more into Fellini's riff on the Blue Angel. Both of these "this reminds me of" is largely meant as sincere compliments; Variety Lights is a mostly sad, bittersweet comedy of the bad times that come when ambition and the ideals of something greater take over and poison the good-will well for a tight knit group.

But even here the comparisons stop superficially; already here, and I don't know how much or little Latuada contributed as director of if it was a total collaboration, Fellini's "I love them, despite everything, even to an extent the selfish Antonelli" attention and embrace of the Low-Rent Performer and the ideal of what the crowd does to someone in general makes for come captivating viewing. I thought at first the male lead was too one note to latch on to, that he would be only a gruff uptight dickweed, but he deepened as the story got him into more desperate straits and his world turns him into a vulnerable puddle.

There are hints of what may come some day with the more Fellini Unchained productions, like a dinner party that features about forty five absorbingly disgusting seconds of the troupe eating a big dinner with the mastication on another wild plane of existence (the only time this was done without it being obnoxious in a film was The Dark Crystal, and that was because they were Muppets, ok as good a digression ill make this week),and dancing and interactions that feel so much like what we've seen so often in Fellini's films that he knew what he wanted from the beginning as far as freewheeling party sequences. But Variety Lights is a film that is richest as a melodrama that gives a wealth of its time to showing these faces, of the performers in action, the crowd as they know what they don't want and get enthralled by cheap thrills (there goes her skirt!) It's also a kind of absurd tragedy of ego and losing oneself in more misplsced ego.

In other words, a very good start to one career, and a nice little discovery at the same time by the director of Mafioso.

Good first effort from Fellini exemplifying the lust for love in both partner & work.