A fantastic fable about the inhabitants of a Milanese shanty town and their struggles with the authorities after oil is discovered. Chaplinesque comedy and Clair-like charm are shamelessly fused with Italian neo-realism in a concoction that shouldn't work but does. Elements of humour, pathos, whimsy, social message and sentiment are precariously balanced in Zavattini's screenplay. It put a very big smile on my face..