A number of different segments taken from 19th century Italian stories.

After World War II, a woman refuses to believe her husband, missing on the Russian front, is dead. Flashbacks reveal their brief courtship and...

A family man travelling for work, Paolo Bianchi, meets on a train a lonely girl, Maria. He sees her again on a bus and she reveals him that she's in...

Based on the Nikolai Gogol story but set in 1950s Italy, "The Overcoat" is the story of a poor city hall clerk whose only desire is to buy a new...

A Milanese shop assistant becomes an overnight film sensation when fate lands her the leading role in a prominent producer's romantic drama.

Sor Clemente escapes the surveillance of his wife and goes to attend a variety show.

In the Po Valley during the 19th century, a rich girl engaged to a well-to-do farmer ends up penniless and is forced to work for her...

In the absence of the biological mother, too busy pursuing her theatrical career, we see the glorification of the maternal surrogate, a woman who is...

Once upon a time a wise and kind old woman discovers a baby in her cabbage patch. She brings up the child and, when she dies, the boy, Totò,...

Primary school teacher Mr. Mombelli, nevertheless satisfied with his life, is driven by his wife to resign and starting a new activity. He invest all...

Sicily, early 1900s. An impoverished prince settles into the house of a rich shipowner and becomes his counselor.

Franco, a young man of noble descent, marries Luisa, daughter of a humble clerk, against his grandmother's will.

A photographer named Corrado snaps a picture of Antonietta. When it shows up on the front page of a magazine, she wants to take him to court over it.

Forced to support herself, her children, her physically incapacitated husband and her obtrusive brother and mother, a downtrodden working woman...

Maria, a prostitute, meets Cesare in a police station, a drunkard reporter. Cesare falls in love with her and wants to save her from her bleak life...

An aging, down-and-out public employee must face the primary school examination.

A singer saves a heavy alcoholic journalist. Fate has a new meeting for them: the two are found in a police station where she was brought with the...