As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life.
In the kingdom of Kindaor, traitor Sedesmondo kills his brother, the King of Kindaor, and becomes the tyrant of kingdom. He abandons the prince Arminio to beasts in the woods, but lions don't kill him and breed him as one of them.
A number of different segments taken from 19th century Italian stories.
Tullio Hermil is a chauvinist aristocrat who flaunts his mistress to his wife, but when he believes she has been unfaithful he becomes enamored of her again.
A troubled and neurotic Italian Countess betrays her entire country for a self-destructive love affair with an Austrian Lieutenant.
Problems arise for Antonio Magnano when he is unable to consummate his marriage to the beautiful Barbara Puglisi and his virility is called into question. Despite the fact that he loves his beautiful wife and they have otherwise been happily married for a year, his problem becomes a source of contention for all concerned.
In 1789, French poet André Chénier struck up a romance with a young aristocrat.
Ulisse is a naive young man out looking for a job after being released from the army. He drops the offer he gets from a group of fascists to go in with the Fossatis, a family of anarchists (unknown to him).
Absurdism’s king of comedy, Luigi Pirandello, adapted a 1915 short story he wrote titled “Signora Frola and Signor Ponza, Her Son-in-Law” into a play two years later. Right You Are (If You Think Are) was presented in dramatic form as a “A Parable in Three Acts.” As in any instructive parable, the characterization is put fully into the service of delivering the lesson and thus creates mysteries about motivation that remain unresolved by the conclusion.
Six episodes (adapted from as many short stories: Gozzano, D'Annunzio, Guido Rocca, Marino Moretti, Alba de Céspedes and Oreste Biancoli), six love stories set in different moments in italian recent history.
Sofia, Don Saverio's sister, confesses to her brother that she was the victim of a fateful event: while she accompanied her brother to Rome, while he was resting at a hotel, a terrible storm broke out during the night, accompanied by thunder and lightning. Frightened, she left her room to seek refuge in her brother's, when, after the lights went out, she accidentally entered a stranger's room in the darkness and fainted from fear of a violent clap of thunder. The unknown individual seized the opportunity and took advantage of her. From that turbulent encounter, Don Felice Sciosciammocca was born, Sofia's illegitimate son, now engaged to Marietta, Don Saverio's daughter.
Everything unfolds in Naples seventeenth century, when a mysterious masked swordsman who calls Salvador Rossa becomes champion of the needy and lonely struggle against the cruel tyrant that frightens the country.
This film relates the story of Russian Princess Fedora (Louise Ferida), in Czarist times, whose royal lover is assassinated on the eve of their marriage. She pledges vengeance, only to become the victim of her vow when she falls in love again.
Little Marco suffers from his parents' divorce. He runs away from home and is hit by a car. He drags on but eventually dies under a tree with pink leaves, remembering a story his grandmother told him.
A young girl falls in love with an actor. She persuades her father to support his acting company, but when she discovers him with another girl she runs away. Then everybody try to find her.
A documentary short detailing the life of Italians living on the Po River in the 1940s.
A boy and a girl fall in love but their fathers take a strong dislike to each other, clashing repeatedly during the preparations for the upcoming marriage.
Marcello is engaged to Gina, the daughter of the boarding house where he lives, but he is undecided whether to marry her or not.
Freshly released from a Russian POW camp, Italian soldier Bruno Baldi tries to discover who betrayed his brother to the Nazis.
Based on a true incident, this tells the story of a troubled young man who kills his sister's reactionary, violent and abusive husband and is eventually arrested for the murder. However, the dead husband happened to be a member of the Italian nobility, and the trial starts to turn into more of a prosecution of the defendant's socialist politics and the activities of his father, a well known liberal social reformer, than the actual crime itself.
A doctor saves a girl from suicide and marries her out of pity. Soon the evil man who had pushed her to the limit taking advantage of her re-enters her life. The ensuing crisis will help the newlyweds overcome their differences and start a fresh, better new life.
Naples 1821. Alphonse, a young poet belonging to a noble French family, is caught by a storm at sea. Fortunately the boat manage to reach the shores of Procida, where Alphonse is welcomed by the family of Andrea. Here he meets the beautiful Graziella.
Love and jealousy in a female public school. Most of the co-eds are in love with professor La Rovere. One, Anna, accuses Maria to have an affair with him.
Elena invites her former husband Roberto to her country house with the aim of winning him back while her sister Monica invites her lover Filippo.
An evil Czarist landowner had mistreated the father and friends of an officer.The officer wreaks vengeance by committing masked coach robberies and insinuates himself into his enemy's castle by pretending to be a French teacher.
Two jerks are enlisted in the Italian army during W.W.1 and by pure luck manage to help win an important battle.
In ancient Rome a love story blossoms between Fabiola, daughter of a senator, and Rhual, a Gallic gladiator. After Fabiola's father is killed, the Romans blame the Christians and the persecution begins. Rhual confesses to being a Christian, is accused of the murder and sentenced to fight to the death in the arena.
A biopic of soprano Maria Malibran (1808–1836). A beautiful singer, Maria Malibran, is forced to turn to the stage after her husband takes to gambling, and goes to Paris where she falls in love with a famous violinist. When her money-seeking husband reappears, the couple go to London, where they find happiness. A composer falls in love with Maria but when his affections are unrequited, he becomes broken, takes to drinking and dies.