A couple of friends aspiring to join film land get mixed up in a robbery, ordered by a mafia boss who wants to seize the evidence he needs to blackmail an American politician.
Rossellini takes numerous liberties with the original source material, rearranging and omitting events at will, presenting everything in a highly undramatic fashion. The film begins in the time of the Old Testament, allowing Rossellini to present the story of Jesus in its ancient, historic context.
Anita, a free Emilian girl falls in love with Salvatore, a Neapolitan bersagliere. The two would like to get married, but he drowns while bathing in the river. From that moment the woman is unable to love anyone else because, at the most beautiful, the ghost of her fiancé appears to her who, in...
The son of the owner of a large Italian cheese factory is kidnapped, but as the factory is on the verge of bankruptcy the owner hatches a plan to use the ransom money as reinvestment in the factory.
In this prehistoric adaptation of Aristophanes ' 'Lysistrata' and 'Women at the Themophoria,' a frustrated wife convinces the women of warring tribes to abstain from sex with their male partners in an attempt to end the fighting.
In Lazio, four young people named Riccetto, Girasole, Lallo and Tombarolo try to make a living by stealing what they find in the tombs of the rich buried. Being inexperienced, they often find themselves in trouble or pursued by the police.
Gobette, a young avant-garde dancer, finds herself unemployed after the closure of the provincial club where she performs. By pure coincidence, Cipriano Gaudet, Minister of Justice, meets her at a judge's house and, convinced that she is the wife of the subordinate, gives promotions to the...
Mario di Donati, a deserter from the Italian army, lives in Paris under a false name with Germaine, his French lover. When the latter learns about his hidden past, she feels hurt by Mario's lack of trust in her and she distances herself from him. In despair, Mario surrenders to the law but, at the...
Ignazio is married to a much younger girl, as she starts being attracted by a handsome young man. The new couple set up several plans to kill the cuckhold, but.. it always seems to work out for lucky Ignazio!
Margherita nicknamed Fornarina is Raphael's mistress. Beatrice, a noblewoman who is also in love with the famous painter tries to get her out of the way, by having her wrongly accused of the murder of a loan shark, whom she has in reality killed herself. Fornarina is sentenced to death. Will...