Giuliana Bettoja

A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident.

At age 50, tax inspector Emerenziano decides to settle down and aims to the three Tettamanzi sisters, who, though not young or pretty by any means, have recently inherited a large amount of money.

The Lagno is the canal that crosses Naples, collecting its debris to stop even before reaching the sea. Around its dirty waters, the film outlines a cross-section that is anything but oleographic of the Neapolitan capital, immortalized already in the advanced industrial era and still wearing the signs of war and desperate poverty. After a few spoken notes, the sound commentary is entirely inhabited by a ghostly composition.

This semi-amusing sex (romance) comedy has four separate stories: "The Telephone Call", written by Rodolfo Sonego, directed by Dino Risi. "A Treatise on Eugenics", written by Tullio Pinelli from a story by Luciano Salce and Steno, directed by Luigi Comencini. "The Soup", written by Rodolfo Sonego and Luigi Magni, directed by Franco Rossi. "Monsignor Cupid", written by Leo Benvenuti and Piero de Bernardi from a story by Boccaccio, directed by Mauro Bolognini.

In Montesano, Salento, during the festivities held in August in honour of Saint Donatus, patron saint of epileptics and the mentally ill, the power of collective suggestion causes strange phenomena and rituals to occur. Luigi Di Gianni, master of anthropological documentary, films the worshippers with Dionysian force as they writhe and scream as if in a pagan rite, showing how the content of the Catholic liturgy succumbs to the primitive passion of popular religiosity.