A young woman teaches commercial writing and makes her students practice by writing letters addressed to an imaginary recipient from Vienna. One day, the love letter the woman writes to this non-existent man is accidentally sent by one of her students –and falls into the hands of a real person.
Ambrogio Carugati, a perpetually failing graduate student, turns to a former university classmate, the gynecologist Roberto Setti, to escape the arranged marriage with Gabriella, a girl he doesn't like.
Successful WWI pilot Luciano Serra has problems adjusting to an ordinary life in peace, so he leaves his family and becomes a pilot in America. In the 30s, his son in Italy wants also to become a pilot, and Luciano accepts an offer of a double dealing agent for a flight from Rio to Rome, but his...
Alberto, son of a rich engineer, falls in love with Luisa, a ruthless manicurist who is only after his money. His parents offer him a holiday in Venice because they hope he will forget her. Alberto however leaves for Venice with Luisa, who has asked a friend of hers to take her place at the beauty...
The merchant Giovanni Illes is tracked down by the debtors, but cannot pay his debts. To save her father from bankruptcy, Anna talks to the lawyer, trying to earn an extension. The lawyer grants it to him, but he gets too close, even physically. She wants to defend herself, but his power dominates...
Lilia Silvi stars as Carina, an orphaned little seamstress, who is in the habit of sneaking out of her window at night, and go to the theater. Once back in her small chamber, she will act out all the parts of the play she has just witnessed. Her longing is to be on the stage, and then she meets...
A wealthy widow becomes infatuated with an adventurer posing as a poet and, forgetting her responsibilities as a mother and her no longer young age, falls prey to a love frenzy in her family that puts her at odds with her daughter, who has just left boarding school, and her own brother, who is all...
An Italian proprietor of a squalid Djibouti bar collaborated in selling arms to Ethiopians fighting his own country's invasion but after finding his long lost son on the Fascist front he decides to choose patriotism over selfish profit.
A young music teacher, after her house is burned down by a raid, has to go to a refugee camp with her old and sick mother. She is forced to sell everything she owns, while she is looking for a job as a singer. One night, tired and frustrated, she meets a man who invites her out for a drink. She...
During the Spanish occupation of Naples, the people led by Tommaso Aniello - known as "Masaniello" - plot against the Viceroy. The Viceroy's son, under another name, has a son from Masaniello's sister, but his father has already planned a marriage for him with a Spanish patrician against his wishes.
