He does part of the acting for the actors." Since Quinn and Basehart did not speak Italian, both were dubbed in the original release.

“La Strada” uses cinema so expertly, it creates the kind of impact and emotional experience you can only get from a movie. A landmark in Italian cinema, this powerhouse of a film became one of the world's most influential films, making Fellini and his wife (the film's star Giulietta Masina) internationally famous.

La Strada is structurally, and titularly, a road film; “la strada” literally means “the road” in Italian.

A film of despair and optimism, cruelty and salvation, and its own clandestine sense of humor, La strada contains philosophical and spiritual dimensions, and a unified visual poetry, that qualify it as Fellini's first masterpiece.