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 was by Howard Estabrook and Herman Weissman, adapted from the 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 John J. Mescall. The film stars Lynn Bari, Francis Lederer, Akim Tamiroff, Alla Nazimova and Louis Calhern. Despite a low budget and several notable deviations from the Thornton Wilder novel, the film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Score (Dimitri Tiomkin). 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 Perricholi, whose life was also the inspiration for the novella Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement by Prosper Mérimée, an opéra bouffe, La Périchole by Jacques... full article at wikipedia