At his greatest, Jean Renoir expressed the beauty in our common humanity; that’s what Anna Magnani at her greatest expressed. This 1952 movie--his tribute to commedia dell’arte--is also a tribute to her fabulous gifts, and she gives the film its gusto.

As with all of Renoir`s films, it is impossible to define the tone of The Golden Coach, so smoothly does comedy shade into drama, joy into despair, warm optimism into cool cynicism and vice versa.

What the whole thing comes down to is a stunningly colorful show, in the middle of which looms Miss Magnani.

[The Golden Coach] wasn’t what most people were looking for from a night at the movies in 1952, yet it’s a perfectly wonderful film if you take it on its own terms.