Donatella is a simple and honest roman girl, daughter of a bookbinder and girlfriend of Guido, a gas station owner. One day she finds a woman's handbag containing valuables and documents, and decides to return it to her owner, a wealthy American lady, who offers Donatella a job as a secretary as a reward: she has to manage the lady's villa during her absences. There, Donatella casually meets Maurizio, a rich, elegant and well-educated young man, and ends up falling in love.
Mario and Fabrizio are two boxer friends who fall for the same girl and become enemies because of her. As time goes by things get better between the two men but... tragedy looms behind the corner.
A cook from Sardinia who had emigrated to Milan goes back to his native island thinking he has inherited some money with his uncles death. He finds out he has to avenge his death instead.
Three friends, a mechanic, a clockmaker, and a night warden are engaged to three sisters but are broke and cannot get married and pay the rent. They convince their future father-in-law to buy three little flats for them but the man buys them from a swindler and the friends run the risk of going to prison.