In Romagna, an Italian district, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the owners of an estate are the professor Edoardo, always lost in reveries, and his wife Maria. They have a son, Robertino, who has a friend: Zvanin. Zvanin is the son of Mingòn and Marianna, two peasants. Dolly is an american cousin and every summer she comes in Romagna. The movie narrates their stories over the years until the post I World War period.
When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.
His 1933 debut, following some years as a journalist and then script boy, was Treno popolare, an early sound lark about several Roman petit bourgeois on a day trip to the country that was influenced by the German proto-neorealist silent picture People on Sunday (1930). Produced at the height of the fascist era, Treno popolare was nonetheless free of propaganda, and featured the first film score by the legendary composer Nino Rota.
