Andrea Forzano

An Italian singer who found fame in America comes back to his native country and finds out that his former girlfriend is in prison.

In this farce Madame Dalia (Alda Mangini) is a mature countess/pseudo-spiritualist grifter who has rented a villa by the sea and, avoiding police surveillance, runs a clandestine gambling den. In town for a peace conference two suitors, one American and one German, go to the gambling house in an attempt to win over Giulietta (Sophia Loren) Madame Dalia’s supposed niece, a woman they believe was the subject of a portrait they became enamoured with during the war.

A down-and-out crook on the lam befriends a young street urchin, in an Italian port city. At first amused that the boy is a sneak thief, he tries to deflects the kid from a life of crime. Tipped off by a woman anxious to collect the reward for him (who is wanted for murder), the police pursue the two lost souls.

A captain, a well-known flying ace, is developing his own device which will make a notable contribution to the prestige of his country's air force. One evening he occasionally meets a girl who strikes him with her mysterious behavior. In fact, he witnesses some completely inexplicable events that disturb him and take away the necessary serenity of mind to attend to his work, from which he feels detached. An explosion in the laboratory brings to the attention of an entire espionage network that was working to prevent the realization of the project.

In a village, rumours spread that a treasure is hidden nearby. To finance the search, a farmer sells a 14th-century painting of the Madonna, leaving it with a master restorer. The farmer's daughter, who felt a particular veneration for the sacred image, goes to the restorer's workshop to see the painting of the Madonna again and falls asleep in front of it. While the girl is asleep, the restorer begins to paint her portrait, which he will title "Sleeping Girl." In the end, the girl and the painter will marry and be able to keep the painting with them.