He learns that the woman's father had found Gelsomina on the beach and kindly taken her in. However, she had wasted away and died.

Like many of the best neorealist films, La Strada is melodramatic, in the sense that its emotional tenor is rooted in the suffering of the moral figure, the abuse of the hidden and ignored who actually are the ones who can offer redemption to the world. Gelsomina isn't simply a victim.

His vignettes fill his movie with beauty, sadness, humor and understanding. Although there are English subtitles and the voices of the Messrs. Quinn and Basehart have been dubbed into Italian, "La Strada" needs no fuller explanations. It speaks forcefully, poetically and often movingly in a universal language.