The Bridge of San Luis Rey is a 1944 drama film made by Benedict Bogeaus Productions and released by United Artists.

The screenplay by Howard Estabrook and Herman Weissman was adapted from the 1927 novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder.

In the year of 1774, a hundred-year old bridge leading to the chapel of San Luis Rey in Peru, plunges into the deep chasm it spans, killing the five people who are crossing it.

In Lima, Brother Juniper talks to a well known local theatre figure called Uncle Pio (Akim Tamiroff), and asks him about a famous actress, Micaela Villegas (Lynn Bari).

When Manuel left for Spain, Pio became Micaela's mentor and helped her become an excellent actress, working for the Comedia Theater.

Her celebrity and beauty attracted the viceroy Don Andre's (Louis Calhern) interest, and he asked her to pay him a private visit at his mansion.

Tension rises between the twin brothers when Manuel discovers all the letters Micaela has written to him, that Esteban neglected to forward to him.

[2] 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).

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.