Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

One hates to bad-mouth a work by a director as great as Jean Renoir. You can’t help feeling that it’s more your own problem than his. Nevertheless, I found his film The Golden Coach a real comedown from my previous exposures to his work.

Historical Background: The Golden Coach (1952) was the first of a trilogy of films directed by Jean Renoir (1894-1979) during the 1950’s relating to the theater in one way or another. It was followed by French Cancan (1955) and Elena and Her Men (1956). The Golden Coach was also Renoir’s only Italian film. To hedge his bets, he shot three versions of it – in Italian, French, and English. Renoir himself felt that the English version was the best of the three and it is the one presented in the Criterion Special Edition release of the stage-related Renoir trilogy. The Golden Coach was adapted by Renoir from a play by Prosper Merimee. Renoir stated that his only collaborator for this film was Antonio Vivaldi! Renoir listened to music by Vivaldi while writing the script and incorporated a considerable amount of the composer’s music in the film as well.

The Story: The location is a Spanish colonial outpost in Peru in the early 18th-century. The Viceroy, Ferdinand (Duncan Lamont), is an extravagant fellow and has just imported a magnificent golden coach to use as an icon to help keep the natives and peasants in line (not to mention its potential contribution to his prestige among the courtiers). Arriving on the same ship is a down-on-their-luck troupe of Italian performers called the “Commedia dell’Arte.” They are immediately disappointed by their new surroundings, having been led to believe that the streets in the New World would be paved in gold. Instead, they fine only a few dusty dirt roads. Worse, the theater that they had been promised by the innkeeper is presently just a shed in a barnyard.

The star of the troupe is the spirited and captivating Camilla (Anna Magnani). She is loved by an actor of the troupe, Felipe (Paul Campbell), son of a famous Spanish swordsman. A theater is constructed and the curtain soon rises on the opening performance. During Camilla’s first number, Ramón, le Toreador (Riccardo Rioli), the most popular man in the Spanish colony, enters grandly and momentarily distracts the audience, much to Camilla’s irritation. She wins them back, however, while also greatly charming Ramón with her wit and temper. From his palace, the Viceroy Ferdinand hears the applause and general commotion and decides to order the Italian troupe to give a performance at the palace, much to the chagrin of the snooty courtiers who feel it beneath their dignity to associate with such riff-raff. When the performance takes place, Ferdinand is greatly smitten with Camilla, and all the more so because he realizes he can remove his wig when they are alone together rather than having to adhere to the etiquette of the court.

The Viceroy decides he will give the much-coveted golden coach to Camilla as a gift. This leads to an attempt on the part of the aristocrats to unseat Ferdinand. They will only need the concurrence of the Bishop. Meanwhile, Ramón declares his love for Camilla and his readiness to be an intensely jealous lover, killing any who dare glance at her. Felipe, who had abandoned his hopes of winning Camilla and run off for a captaincy in the army (“It’s better to go and fight savages. You have a chance of winning at least.”), suddenly returns. Consequently, all three of Camilla’s suitors show up at the same time in her quarters, leading to a sword fight between Ramón and Felipe and a strategic withdrawal by the Viceroy. The Bishop arrives to settle the challenge to the Viceroy’s future. It falls to the resourceful Camilla to save the day.

Themes: Class distinctions were among the consistent targets for satire in Renoir’s works throughout his career. Here, he makes fun of the unwillingness of the courtiers to associate with mere actors as well as their disinterest in helping monetarily with the war effort against the natives. The aristocrats are presented as mainly concerned with their place and position in court society and the symbols of wealth and prestige such as the golden coach. The rabble, as represented by the theatrical troupe, are presented as crude and unpolished, but earthy and genuinely able to laugh and emote, unlike the stuffy aristocrats. The Viceroy takes to Camilla precisely because he can laugh easily in her presence and let his hair (or his wig at least) down. On the other hand, the Viceroy seems oddly out of place when he visits Camilla and finds himself walking gingerly through rooms disquieted by crying babies and littered with debris and unsavory décor.

Another theme of The Golden Coach, albeit a somewhat hackneyed one, is the old notion that an actor’s first love is his audience. To Camilla, the Viceroy, Felipe, and Ramón are all equally delightful and equally superfluous. None of them can supplant her need to be on stage, winning the adulation of an audience.

Perhaps surprisingly, The Golden Coach has nothing significant to say about colonialism nor does it depict any interaction between the Spanish and the natives. There are verbal references but nothing more. The settings never stray far from the palace, the theater, and Camilla’s residence. The focus of the film is entirely on the displacement of the Italian theater troupe and the court intrigues among the Spanish colonial nobility.

Production Values: The Golden Coach displays a rich palette of bright colors and Renoir’s usual painter’s eye for beautiful imagery. The final thirty seconds or so of the film is very blurry, which I had assumed to be an intentional effect, but after reading a discussion on the internet about it, I now suspect it to be a rare flaw on the part of Criterion in the transfer process. Two movie-goers who had seen the original in theaters claimed that there was no such blurriness in the theater projections.

My personal reaction to this film was not all that favorable while most reviews that I’ve read were highly positive. Those that praise the film most highly typically cite the performance by Magnani as the foremost delight. One reviewer states, “The only great performance is Magnani’s. She makes that broad comedy seem natural – she bursts into some of the heartiest, most convincing laughter I’ve heard. She also has the quality of looking attractive even when her hair is an imperfect mess.” Another reviewer comments, “Anna Magnani gives a superb performance.” A third states that, “The Golden Coach does not so much star Magnani as it exists because of her.” On the other hand, the film was not a success at the time of its release, “even among fans of the star Anna Magnani,” so my viewpoint, in this instance, is not entirely isolated. Part of the problem for me was that I didn’t find Magnani attractive or appealing. She’s just not my type, I guess, either physically or behaviorally. I didn’t find her face or figure appealing and her unrestrained boisterousness is not at all to my taste. I didn't care for either her performance in the film or her performances with the Commedia dell'Art within the film. That lack of appeal, in turn, makes it hard for me to buy into the idea of three highly eligible men madly in love with her. I hate to admit it, but were I forced to choose one of the women in this film for a wife, I would take one of the snooty women of the court over Magnani’s Camilla. Admittedly, Magnani was clearly once a star in Italy. Her other best known performances include outings in Open City (1945), L'Amore (1948), The Rose Tattoo (1955), and Mamma Roma (1962). I don’t picture myself making a special effort to track any of those down based on my first exposure to Magnani’s work. The rest of the performances were also all rather mediocre, except for the cute kids dressed up in harlequin costumes, tumbling and cavorting about.

The Golden Coach is a clear departure from Renoir’s more characteristic realism into the artificial world of theater. I generally don’t respond particularly warmly to films that are about movie-making or theater, with a few exceptions such as Mephisto and Cinema Paradiso. Too often, such films seem to be made for people in the business rather than for a general audience. What bothered me most, however, about this film, was that it didn’t hold my interest. The plot is weak and unconvincing and the themes rather shallow. It failed to provide either solid entertainment value for me or intellectual stimulation.

Bottom-Line: I’ve given my highest praise to three Renoir films in previous reviews (Grand Illusion, The Rules of the Game, and French Cancan), so perhaps my expectations for The Golden Coach were unrealistically high. The version of The Golden Coach presented by Criterion is the English language version. It also provides optional English language subtitles for the hearing-impaired. It has a running time of 105 minutes.

Recommended: No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12