The Bridge of San Luis Rey

The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a 1944 drama film made by Benedict Bogeaus Productions and released by United Artists. It was produced and directed by Rowland V. Lee with Benedict Bogeaus as co-producer. The screenplay by Howard Estabrook and Herman Weissman was adapted from the 1927 novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder. The music score was by Dimitri Tiomkin and the cinematography by John W. Boyle and an uncredited John J. Mescall. The film stars Lynn Bari, Francis Lederer, Akim Tamiroff, Nazimova and Louis Calhern. Dimitri Tiomkin's music was nominated for the Best Original Score. Background and production The film and novel are very loosely based on the real-life story of Micaela Villegas (1748-1819), a famous Peruvian entertainer known as La Perichole, whose life was also the inspiration for the novella Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée; an opéra bouffe, La Périchole by Jacques Offenbach; and Jean Renoir’s 1953 film Le Carrosse d'or (The Golden Coach). There was also an earlier part-talkie film version of The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1929) starring Lili Damita. The film was remade once more in 2004 with the title The Bridge of San Luis Rey and starring F. Murray Abraham, Kathy Bates and Pilar López de Ayala.