Rome: Free City

Rome, 1945. A man (Andrea Checchi, Black Sunday) despondent over his fianceée’s dalliances while he was off fighting in the war is saved from putting a bullet in his own head by a cat burglar (Nando Bruno, Rome, Open City) who was going to rob him. A young typist (Valentina Cortese, Thieves’ Highway) living in the same building considers resorting to prostitution in order to avoid eviction from her apartment. A fence is having an affair with his partner’s girl (Marisa Merlini, Time of Vacation), the former fiancée of the would-be suicide. The thief and the would-be suicide save the typist from arrest, and the trio goes to a nightclub for a drink. Into the club walks a rain-soaked amnesiac (Vittorio De Sica, director of The Bicycle Thief) seeking his own identity. He thinks he’s a famous man scheduled to give a speech at a meeting of some sort. At closing time, the quartet heads to an afterhours casino. The lives of all the parties collide when pearls belonging to the fence end up in the hands of the thief and would-be suicide.