Vitaliano Brancati

Catania, Italy. The Platania family hires a new French governess, the beautiful Caterina. The life of the whole family will be soon turned upside down.

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.

Married for eight years with no children, Brits Katherine and Alex Joyce are driving to Italy, their ultimate destination just outside of Naples to sell the villa they have just inherited from his uncle, the villa where they will be staying during their time there. On the drive, they come to the realization that this trip marks the first time that they have truly been alone together, and as such don't really know one another in the true sense.

A Sicilian professor who moves to Rome gets lost in the maze of Roman ministries and gives in to corruption.

Aldo Piscitello, a minor government clerk, is forced in 1934 to join the Fascist party. When the war comes, he finds himself able only to talk ineffectually in secret against Mussolini, even as his own son Giovanni is sent into battle. By the end of the war, Aldo has found the courage to stand up for his beliefs, but by then it is too late.

Giovanni Percolla lives in Catania surrounded by the attentive cares of his three sisters. He permanently acts like a Don Giovanni to hide his real poor "knowledge" of women. With his friend he moves also to Rome but women still continues to remain part of his fantasies. But Giovanni succeeded to build anyway a fame of "tombeur de femmes". One day he meets the real love of Maria Antonietta and decides to marry. Will things change?

A film made up of four episodes: a jar repairer gets trapped in a vat because of his hunch; a young unmarried mother is forced to beg to buy herself a fan; Rosario Chiarchiaro appears before a law court for casting spells; the discomfort of an overtight jacket gives a wedding witness the strength to persuade the bridegroom's reluctant parents to bless his union.

In this comedy Alberto Sordi plays Rosario Scimoni, known as Sasà, an opportunistic and unscrupulous guy, nephew of the mayor of Catania, and he's always ready to take sides with anyone who can help him. He switches from socialism to fascism; he changes his political faith the same way he changes women. He even tries to found his own party.

The Catanese baron Paolo Castorini leaves the closed Sicilian environment and moves to Rome where he enters into erotic relationships with women of all classes. He, however, feels dissatisfied with a life of only the body, compared to his journalist friend Vincenzo and his own father, a sober and serious thinker. But is it too late for him?

On December 24th the Orient Express gets snowbound near a little mountain village and its passengers are forced to spend some time there, mingling with the local people, upsetting their usually monotonous daily lives.

A number of different segments taken from 19th century Italian stories.

Paolino, a teacher at an elementary school near Naples, appears nervous for a few days and his friends do not know why. The man is the lover of Assunta, the mother of one of his pupils, and he discovers that she has become pregnant.

The apathetic existence of forty-year-old Giovanni Percolla from Catania is shaken only by his marriage to the marquise Ninetta and his move to Milan, although a brief return to Sicily is enough for him to rediscover the indolence of his philosophy of life.

A barber, murderer because of jealousy, spends twenty years in jail. He cannot, however adjust himself to a changed world and to the hypocrisy of his own relatives and decides to return behind bars.

Esposito is a thief who cons tourists in Rome. Officer Bottoni manages to catch him and starts persecuting him. When Esposito manages to flee, Bottoni's superiors inform him that he'll lose his job if he can't catch Esposito.

Just before the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, a party is held in the castle of the Stettin's Counts.

Robert and his fiancée Lucienne were due to go on vacation together to a tented village in Sicily. Robert is forced to postpone his trip and only joins Lucienne a few days later, taking advantage of the departure of a following group. During the train journey, he befriends Thérèse, a young Sicilian living in Paris, who wants to make a pilgrimage to the land of her ancestors. Lucienne is away from the camp when Robert arrives, so he can continue to see Thérèse, and little by little they discover that they love each other. When Lucienne returns, an explanation and reconciliation take place, then Robert changes his mind and, with the vacations over, leaves Lucienne alone to live in Sicily with Thérèse, who wants to stay in her family's homeland.

An exiled Italian prostitute shields her sister from a deep-sea diver on an island volcano.

After dying in a car accident, wealthy shoe industrialist Carlo Bacchi finds himself in the afterlife, where he is condemned to hell for having committed evil while alive. Defending himself against the accusation in an impassioned plea, however, he succeeds in obtaining to return to earth for a few hours to make reparation for the evil he committed and, above all, for the bad deed that caused Amedeo Santini's suicide attempt. The affair will lead him to make a risky but happy choice.

While recuperating from their injuries in a hospital, three young women flash back to the events leading up to the catastrophe. Remata (Lia Amando) has spent her entire life trying to overcome a childhood rape. Annamaria (Antonella Lualdi) has recently come out of an unfortunate marriage to a wealthy but insensitive boor. And Gianna (Eleanore Rossi Drago), the daughter of a college professor, has ruined her life with narcotics.