Anna Zaccheo is a beautiful young woman from a working class Neapolitan family. Her main concern is to find herself a suitable husband. She meets a young sailor Andrea one day and gets engaged to him. But while she is waiting for Andrea to return from the navy she gets raped by her boss. Her life suddenly takes a downward spiral.
By a twist of fate, the photogenic Milanese shop assistant, Clara Manni, gets the leading role in Italian movie producer Gianni Franchi's romantic drama, "Addio Signora", and becomes an overnight sensation in Rome.
Oreste is known for his deliberation and caution in handling license forms at his office.But when he needs money to send his 3 girls off to Capri to find rich suitors, he is tempted to take bribes to put a license through more quickly.
Vincenzo, a railwayman who works on the Rome-to-Paris line, has a wife in Italy and a mistress in France: Ginette, a widow with a four-year-old daughter. When he's offered a job in Paris he decides to move, but unfortunately his wife and petulant brother-in-law insist on accompanying him to Paris, and he must decide between the two women in his life.
A young shepherd returns home after the Second World War having been held in a prisoner of war camp. He finds that the local landowner has stolen his sheep and his girlfriend. When he also assaults and murders his sister, the shepherd takes revenge.
A young student of an upper-class background who is surrounded by classmates that are of working-class backgrounds, after a novel in diary format by Enrico Bottini.
