Four short films by four different directors dealing with the principles of modern life.
Based on a Pirandello play, Vittori De Sica plays a wealthy young social lion who has to constantly fight off a horde of women who are eager to marry him because of his position and money. He weds Elisa Cegani, a servant girl, who turns out to be a more appealing wife than any of the others could have been. Assis Noris decorates the screen well as one of the chasers and pursuers. In 1937, De Sica and Noris made a film, "II Signor Max," which, other than the setting and character role names, basically has the same plot as this film.
Directed by Amleto Palermi
The last days of Napoleon on the island of Saint Helena.
The story of an old man who is losing his grip on reality, fighting to keep his memory in spite of the fast moving society in which he lives.
An Italian industrialist who has made a fortune in America returns to Italy planning to make a film about a beautiful woman who smiled at him before he left his home country years before.
A blacksmith from Montevergine, accused of murder, flees to Argentina. Years later, a mute witness testifies to his innocence, leading to his acquittal. Just before returning home, an Argentine woman plants opium in his luggage, resulting in a ten-year prison sentence. After his release, he finds his daughter engaged to a wealthy landowner who had falsely accused him. Enraged, he plans to kill the man but is moved by grace at the Marian Shrine, lays down his weapon, and makes peace with his enemy.
Hot on the heels of Dinero ed Amore, Loyalty of Love was the second of two Guido Brignone-directed films released within same week. Like the earlier picture, Loyalty is a historical drama. During the period in which Italy was under Austrian rule, Count Federico (Nerio Bernardi) fights tirelessly to free his people from oppression. The Count's wife Teresa (Marta Alba) remains loyally by his side, even when he is unfaithful to her, which is often. Federico doesn't realize how important Teresa is to him, nor how much he loves her, until it's almost too late. At time of the release of Loyalty of Love, star Marta Alba had transferred her base of operations to New York, where she starred in Broadway production of Tovarich.
Padua, 1540. Angelo is married to Caterina but has an affair with Tisbe, an actress who travels with Rodolfo, presented as her brother but actually her lover and also Caterina's first and true love. Tisbe is also searching for the daughter of the woman who saved her mother from capital punishment and to whom she had given a crucifix. Caterina, victim of a plot hatched by Angelo and Tisbe, is saved by her at the last minute, as she recognizes her as the daughter of the woman who saved her mother from capital punishment.
The leader of a band of mountain bandits defending Naples against the French plays a dual role as a police official. Our romantic hero pivots as well between two women, the sister of a royalist and a lady spy.
Traces the life of Anna Magnani, her creations, her successes, her triumphs, her boycotted career, her nonconformism, her anxieties, her generosity ... Punctuated with photos that tell her career in theater and cinema, Extracts of films, this documentary portrait also gives the floor to his friends and relatives, from Roberto Rossellini to Marcello Mastroianni, through Federico Fellini.
When young Adriana gives birth to her daughter, she understands that her baby's father won't come back to her. He is, in fact, a playboy, Diego. Years pass by and Adriana is now happy with her new job in a beauty salon, where also works the shy accountant Mario Fabbrini, who soon takes to liking her, unaware of her situation. But one day Diego comes to the salon with the woman he's about to marry, sees Adriana and tries to speak with her, but she hides into Fabbrini's office. Diego then comes to the salon again, proposing Adriana to become his lover, but she refuses him. Fabbrini in the meantime overhears everything from outside the office...
Four corrupted fascist libertines round up 9 teenage boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of sadistic physical, mental and sexual torture.
A former inspector of the SIAE, focusing everything on his cunning and stubbornness, tries to grab (even in fraudulent ways) all the televisions or private radios that come to hand; all to please a mysterious woman named Gilda.
