Carlo Duse
Peppone, hardened mayor in Brescello, the small village on the Po river, aspires to become senator. Neither before or after WWII, where he fought against the Germans and fascists, he never went seriously to school, so he needs (at least) a diploma. Believe it or not, don Camillo helps Peppone to pass the examination (with the forecast of moving to Rome) prompting him the solution of geometry's problem. As implicit reward, Peppone writes a composition about "A man I'll never forget": obviously don Camillo, when Peppone was a resistant in WWII, and don Camillo the young military chaplain. Getting the diploma was the first step. The election campaign just started and the two big parties - Christian-democratic and Communist, forgetful of respective favors, settle down an electoral "war of the words", mean tricks (culminating with the famous horny Peppone/Lucifer) and easy propaganda.
An Italian government agent is assigned to break up a drug smuggling ring on the island of Ischia but his daughter is kidnapped by the gang.
In a village of the Po valley where the earth is hard and life miserly, the priest and the communist mayor are always fighting to be the head of the community. If in secret, they admired and liked each other, politics still divided them as it is dividing the country. And when the mayor wants his "People's House"; the priest wants his "Garden City" for the poor. Division exist between the richest and the poorest, the pious and the atheists and even between lovers. But if the people are hard as the country, they are good in the bottom of there heart.
The film is set in 1941 during the Second World War, when the city of Benghazi in Italian-ruled Libya was occupied by British forces. Italian inhabitants of Benghazi work to resist the British and discover their military plans. One man, Captain Enrico Berti, appears to be collaborating with the British but is in fact working undercover for Italian intelligence. The film ends with the city being recaptured by Italian troops and their Nazi German allies.
"Black Crossing" - In an Oriental port a group of people embarks a trader designated for Europe. One of them, a shady individual, entrusts the captain with a box of valuables to be kept until the end of the journey.
Everything unfolds in Naples seventeenth century, when a mysterious masked swordsman who calls Salvador Rossa becomes champion of the needy and lonely struggle against the cruel tyrant that frightens the country.
Called to perform at the Scala, a young baritone begins a transatlantic romance with a famous pianist. The singer, having been skewered by a critic after his last performance in Milan, attempts to find a way to win over the audience and the critics, while wooing his love interest.
The great Italian opera composer recalls his eventful life on his deathbed: his childhood in Busseto, his studies in Milan, his first opera "Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio", the death of his wife and his children killed by smallpox.
A story of the Second Punic Wars, beginning with Scipio's futile pleas to the Roman Senate to build an army to battle Hannibal, that climaxes with the battle of Zama.
Count Agostino di Montecorvo's nephew and niece pretend they get married for his hundredth birthday since the old man has had this wish for a long time. But when the count wants them to beget a child as well they are forced to present him with a fake one. But then the child's mother wants it back...
In Renaissance Florence, a Florentine trader meets a shipwrecked stranger, who introduces himself as Tito Melema, a young Italianate-Greek scholar. Tito becomes acquainted with several other Florentines, including Nello the barber and a young girl named Tessa. He is also introduced to a blind scholar named Bardo de' Bardi, and his daughter Romola. As Tito becomes settled in Florence, assisting Bardo with classical studies, he falls in love with Romola.
