Gina tries to commit suicide by jumping into the river but is saved by Teodoro, an innocent young man. Antonio, Teodoro's brother, tries in every way to seduce her.
A number of different segments taken from 19th century Italian stories.
I figli non si vendono (literally, Children must not be sold) is a 1952 Italian melodrama film by Mario Bonnard
In a luxury hotel in Miramare, a competition is organized between pop music singers. Famous celebrities and famous singers are invited.
An funny, witty and bright biopic by the master of italian comedy Mario Monicelli about the famed italian composer Gioacchino Rossini, here portrayed in a wonderful way by famed actor and later director Sergio Castellitto.
In the first Italian film to be shot in color, Totò portrays a musician named Antonio Scannagatti who strongly hopes to sell his composition, "Epopea italiana", to Tiscordi, who is one of the most important Italian impresarios.
Giovanni used to be a humble, mild-mannered government clerk whose life was turned upside down when he met Giulio, a notorious forger who at once set about manipulating the over-confident man. Giovanni did what he should never have done: he associated himself with the crook. Giulio soon laid hands on Giovanni's money, ruined his career and manhandled him into marrying his own mistress, the beautiful Ginevra. It was of course an unhappy marriage but Giovanni found a little solace when his son Ciro was born. Seven years later though, Wanzer resurfaced...
In Napoli, Nicolino Capece, a truthful pharmacist clerk becomes erroneously recognized as a dangerous Spanish criminal and decides to escape to Spain. In Siviglia, he is blackmailed by the bandit Cast who wants him to marry the rich Patricia Cotten and then kill her. So Nicolino play the bull fighter and heads to the arena....
In 19th-century France, middle-aged orphans Gasparre and Battista, watchmen at an orphanage, find out from a soothsayer that one of them is the offspring of the Hangman of Paris and the other is the son of a count. But it is only a dream of theirs.
Roaming the vast jungles of Congo with his best friend, Bongo the gorilla, Antonio della Buffas, a mysterious man whom the natives call the "white monkey", is utterly unaware that he is the long-lost son of a wealthy explorer. Then, three opportunists manage to capture and bring the white savage to civilisation, bent on getting their hands on his immense fortune.
Beautiful gold-digger Sonia mistakes Antonio, a waiter in a Neapolitan hotel, for Arab Prince Bey of Agapur and makes an appointment with him for the following day in Capri, and Antonio goes there behind the backs of his wife and mother-in-law. A lucky series of circumstances actually does transform him into the prince of the island.
Eight Italian politicians from the communist party gather on a terrace in Rome for a get-together. They discuss about their past, present and future.
A young girl meets by chance an engineer who lives with an unbearable mistress. After abandoning his mistress, the engineer has to leave for Sardinia. He decides to take the girl with him, who has been waiting for this.
A series of comical sketches featuring a doctor, a travelling salesman and some posh gents.
Totò is a tailor but not a great tailor. He is married and his son is to be baptized and Totò hopes that his grand-mother will be moved by the baptism, so moved to help him. Unfortunately his wet nurse Maria loses his son in the garden. Totò doesn't lose heart and rents Rita's daughter and leaves looking for his son. Many adventures are awaiting for him.
Luisa Galli moves to Rome in search of a respectable job, but instead just finds a job as a waitress for the lawyer Giorgi
Venice. March 1735. The carnival is in full swing Everybody's happy mood and the lively streets are filled with musicians, mimes, clowns and acrobats of pickpockets who practice their craft each, displaying a colorful rainbow and sounds. At every corner, there is something going on that should not be missed - especially if it's something forbidden. However, some people are concerned about something else. One is Carlo Goldoni young lawyer of 27 years, he dreams only theater and he thinks only the part that wants to ride. Alas, the money was also hard to find at that time than now. His two friends, Antonio Vivaldi and Gian Battista Tiepolo are better known than him but they are also looking for this rare bird: a patron, who was not on ONLY the desire but also the means to sponsor a work of art.
Two half brothers, one a pilot, the other a repairman at the plane factory of their father, are in a disagreement due to the envy of the younger brother, son of the first wife of their father. Then both brothers fall in love with the same woman; this causes more conflict between the two, making worse an already tense situation.
A Tuscan peasant girl in the 13th century overcomes sexual harassment, and the skepticism of her fellow citizens, as she saves plague victims, works miracles, and eventually becomes a saint.
Dennis O'Keefe plays a GI who falls in love with Mara Lane in postwar Rome. Lane kills her boss, forcing her to flee the law. O'Keefe goes along for the ride so that he won't be knocked off by Lane's husband. Just when it looks as though O'Keefe is willing to go to any lengths to protect the woman he loves, he discovers that she frankly isn't worth it.
A strange vagrant makes repeated attempts to rescue land inhabited by hawkers from being taken over by building development and a subway installation.
Anthology comedy/romance film
Music, ballet, folk dances and mime eliciting the spirit of Naples across the ages are loosely tied together by the comedic wanderings and exploits of the Esposito family.
Started in the summer of 1943 by Lattuada and , the because of the war that raged in Italy at the time, the shooting was interrupted several times only to stop for good in September of the same year. It only resumed after the war, in the spring of 1945, but with Mario Costa as the director instead of Lattuada. It was eventually released in September 1945 with only Lattuada billed as the director. Similarly, the film was started with Vittorio Gassman in the role of Brunello, but when the shooting resumed in 1945 he was replaced by Leonardo Cortese
A private detective and a girl obsessed with thriller novels investigate the murder of a rich entrepreneur.
A ghost who has spent 400 years in a trunk because of a jealous husband tries to take revenge on a descendant of the man but all in all he's a good bloke and when he gets the occasion he helps a youth wrongly accused of murder.
Before finally entering the afterlife, the dead spend a period in a limbo from which they depart only when, among the living, there is no one who remembers them. Under the care of the salacious Domenico the visitors of a small cemetery recount how they arrived at eternal peace.
An eccentric millionaire gives a party for his birthday. With his friends, gamblers and collectors , they play games in their own way. One of them, a woman, suggests this: since they're all gamblers they should play a fortune on the life of one of them.
At the Royal Air Force Academy of Caserta, three students, Mario, Marco and Filippo become great friends. Toward the end of the course, Marco accidentally meets and falls in love with Mario's sister, Adriana. Mario expresses his opposition to Marco and this causes the end of their friendship. Due to an accident during a training flight, Marco is passed from the role of the navigator to the services role, thus not obtaining the military pilot's license.
A group of Italian soccer fans arrive in Paris for a match, but most of them go their separate ways to explore the sights, have a bit of an adventure, and maybe even find some romance.
Gino Bardi is a centre-forward in a football team which is about to be relegated to the second division. Just before a very important match a girl he has a relationship with proposes him to rig it. He refuses the offer but he actually begins playing like an amateur and the crowd begin to smell something fishy going on.
A high school girl, enamored by her young teacher, follows him and discovers that his home life holds many secrets.
To secure her fortune with Monsieur Vaudieu de la Tour, the Machiavellian Claudia kills her lover's elder brother and steals his child. The boy is adopted by a coachman, and later, as secretary to the Minister of Justice, discovers the truth, punishes the bad guys, rewards the good ones and marries the daughter of another innocent man, unjustly accused by Claudia.
Achille Scorzella, a poor, unemployed and hungry devil, having been mistaken for a piano tuner, happens in the home of some new riches.
A poor musician hires a courtesan to pose as his wife so he can "give" her to a wealthy count in return for patronage.
The film is set in Naples. Two doubles, an American and a Neapolitan, alternate visiting Zaza, the maid of a magazine company, deceived by their resemblance.
Police commissioner Lo Gatto is in charge of the local Italian police station within Vatican State. During an investigation, following the murder of a Vatican priest, he decides to question the Pope! For this reason Lo Gatto is sent to a Sicilian remote island Favignana. There is very little for the commissioner to do on the quiet island, so Lo Gatto decides to investigate the vanishing of a tourist which quickly becomes a very complicated affair.
A young Hacienda-owner abuses women due to his traumatic youth while his mother covers for his sadistic actions.
In the year 2030 mankind has regressed to ape form. In order to explain this, a scientist shows a 20th century film about a Roman couple in a society gone mad slightly more than usual to his audience.
After she inherits a huge sum of money, a girl suddenly leaves a working-class man that she previously used to fancy.
After she inherits a huge sum of money, a girl suddenly leaves a working-class man that she previously used to fancy.
Thanks to wartime smuggling Gioconda Perfetti, a roman fruit vendor, becomes very rich. She leaves her shop and moves to a magnificent villa which once belonged to a count. She also becomes involved with some very dubious characters who profit from her ignorance and cheat her out of her money.
Alfredo is a crude Roman motorcycle repairman who is a friend of Count Max, a gentleman and ex-pleasure lover. The latter invites Alfredo to his residence in Campo dei Fiori and teaches him etiquette, French and how to play poker. The laughter will begin when Alfredo meets and chases the beautiful model Isabell Bellissima in Paris.
Several characters coincide during the Christmas holidays in the winter season of Saint Moritz.
Carlo is a responsible sibling who deals with his black-sheep sister Silvia in this situation comedy. When Silvia returns after many years to attend her mother's funeral, Carlo deals with the fallout caused by her many love affairs. Carlo is convinced to kidnap Silvia's child whom she left in a Hungarian children's home, but she soon abandons Carlo and the baby when she takes up with a British rock star.
After several attempts at suicide, depressed thief Antonio Marchi accidentally drowns in a river and ends up in hell.
A beautiful Italian woman is told by her black friend about the Carribean love god Jambaya who appears in the form of the snake. By the end of the movie, Cassini has decided to give herself to Jambaya while Cunningham departs with her white friend's ex-lover, establishing a neat symmetry between their respective fantasies of exoticism.
An advertiser who lives in Milan learns from a former teacher that his mother is dying. He leaves immediately in his car; as he drives thinks back to his childhood and the time he believed his mother had a relationship with the teacher.
A thief caught red-handed tells the landlord a very strange fact that happened to him looking through the keyhole of another apartment where he was stealing.
The owner of a cosmetics factory has made a contract with Radio Sibilla for the transmission of an evening program in which the products of his company are advertised.
Nando Moriconi is a young Italian living in Rome obsessed with all-things American.
Three gorgeous seamstresses meet on the historic steps of the Piazza de Spagna in Rome to discuss one another's love lives.
The Milanese Luigi Pizzigoni, photographer, and the Neapolitan barber Peppino Avallone, resident in Milan, are opponents in the sports field. The first is a proud Inter supporter, while the second is from Napoli.
Two little angels, a boy and a girl, come down on earth to choose their parents prior to birth. They choose the daughter of a retired general as their future mother and an opera singer as their dad. But making the two chosen ones meet, fall in love and marry will prove to be anything but easy.
Claudio and Anna Tancredi, opera singers, are husband and wife. Their married life, however, is often disturbed by small misunderstandings and Anna's burning jealousy.
Through a series of scenes inspired by famous songs, various episodes of Italian life in the last fifty years are recalled.
Liana, an architecture graduate, is about to get married until she is confronted with the fact she is sacrificing the rest of her life for a man she barely knows. So begins a series of romantic encounters in which Liana tries to find her freedom and happiness, but which will ultimately lead her to a tragic fate.
A famous tenor pawns valuables too often. His strange behavior arouses the suspicions of a detective. The situation is complicated by the fact that both the tenor and the detective are in love with the same woman. Attempts at infidelity, revenge, and spying ensue. In the end, love conquers all.
After an introduction consisting of a series of close-ups of Totò, the anthology presents clips from films performed by the late comedian actor, collected in chapters.