Elena Varzi

The story of five girls who are among the 200 women who answer a want ad for a modest secretarial position one rainy morning in Rome in 1951. They crowd and push their way into the old building and fight their way up the stairs to await an interview, only to be told there is not enough time to interview all. A scuffle breaks out and the stairway collapses sending many of them hurtling down in a mass of bodies amid brick and mortar. How the event changes or fails to change their lives is told. (imdb)

Disciples of Italian filmmaker Pietro Germi have noted the stylistic influence of Hollywood's John Ford in Germi's neorealist Il Camino Della Speranza. The story concerns the plight of illegal immigration, as experienced by a pair of Sicilian miners. Unable to find work in their own country, the protagonists embark on a long and arduous journey to the French border, with immigration officials nipping at their heels every step of the way... (Hal Erickson)

Back in his village, former war prisoner Bruno Baldi is dead set on avenging his brother who has been shot by a German firing squad after being given away by a villager. But nobody wants to give him the name of the culprit. At long last, Antonio, a joiner, admits that he is the informer. Bruno kills him but before dying Antonio reveals that he has accused himself only to save the real guilty party...

A frustrated lawyer who sells perfumes is reunited with a fellow student and falls in love with his wife.