L'ultima carrozzella

Aldo Fabrizi drives a horse-drawn coach in Rome. He feuds with the men who have abandoned the trade to driven taxis, like Ciro Berardi, who now owns a fleet of taxis; so he's upset when his daughter, Elide Spada, has a budding romance with Berardi's son, Enzo Fiermonte in this comedy Frabrizi co-wrote with Fellini.

Fabrizi is driving home when Anna Magnani grabs him and insists he take her to the train station. They argue all the way, she refuses to tip him, and then discovers that she left her case with her jewels in his coach. The next morning, Fabrizi goes to her friend's place to hand it over and receive a reward of 500 lire. Comic Tino Scotti mmakes him take him to the race track, when Frabrizi accidentally bets the sum on the winnin horse. The next day, while he is celebrating his ne riches at home, police come and arrest him. Signorina Magnani's diamond has been replaced with a paste replica.

It's a silly comedy of poor Romans making do with shouting and whatever kindness they can afford, with Fabrizi loving the horse who has pulled his coach, his daughter, and the largesse he can spend on his family and friends. It's filled with fine comic performances, particularly in the courtroom scene, and Miss Magnani is quite funny in her loud, boisterous, self-important way. She is best remembered for her serious performances in the late 1940s and 1950s, but this is the second of her earlier, supporting roles I have seen in comedies, and she acquits herself well.

Is there a chase? Well, this is a comedy, so of course there is.

Anna Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi appear here together in this fascist-era comedy. Their most famous film together would be the Rossellini neo-realist masterpiece OPEN CITY made as the war was ending a couple of years later. Federico Fellini collaborated on the script of this quite silly story about a Roman horse-and-buggy cabbie and his bout with Anna Magnani, a singer, over a lost necklace. The cabbie is accused of stealing it and winds up in court when she presses charges. The rest of the film deals with Fabrizi's attempts to prevent his daughter from marrying a taxi driver who uses a real car, not a horse-and-buggy. That's not traditional enough! At the end of the film the necklace is found, all is forgiven, the daughter's boyfriend becomes part of the family. Mario Mattoli, the director, made dozens of pleasantly vacuous films similar to this one throughout his long career.