First episode: Racketeer (from the story: "Trent’anni, diconsi trenta", with Totò [Antonio De Curtis], Pasquale Gennaro, Lianell Carell). A man is victim of the overbearance of a school ex-companion that has installed in his house from ten years and plays the lord and the master. When he learns that the bully is mortally sick, the master chase away him from his house. But the diagnosis was wrong and the guappo returns with anything but benevolent pruposes. But seeing that the family is united in the fear of his angers, he goes away from there without setting in action his intentions.
Second episode: Pizza on Credit (from the stories "Gente nel vicolo" and "La morte a Napoli", with Sophia Loren, Paolo Stoppa, Giacomo Furia, Alberto Farnese, Luciano Rondinella). A pizza maker realizes that his wife has lost a precious ring. The woman lets him intend to have lost it preparing the pizzas, by subsequently she remembers to have left it in her lover’s house. After many researches, the ring is returned by the last that says to have found it in a pizza.
Third episode: The Gambler (from the homonym story, with Vittorio De Sica, Pierino Bilancioni). A noble man, maniac of the cards (a selfironic De Sica, that was indeed an inveterate gamber), forces the doorkeeper’s child to play with him, but the little boy wins all the games, provoking bursts of anger in the noble gentleman.
Fourth episode: Theresa (from the story "Personaggi in busta chiusa", with Silvana Mangano and Erno Crisa). A man with his indifference has provoked the suicide of a girl in love with him. To expire, he marries Teresa, a hoocker, to which the wedding’s day evening he reveals that he will consider her as his wife only in front of the people. Teresa, humiliated and angry, runs away form home to return to the brothel, but, after some moments of indecision, she returns back and accepts the new situation.
Fifth episode: Il professore (from the story "Don Ersilio Miccio vendeva saggezza", with Eduardo De Filippo, Tina Pica, Gianni Crosio). Father Ersilio, seller of wisdom, teach to the inhabitants of the district to free of the intrusiveness of a noble through the characteristic of the “pernacchio” (to distinguish it from the vulgar raspberry).

PRIZES

Silver ribbon for La Mangano and Stoppa
Diploma of worth at the Festival fo Edimburgh (1995)

CRITIQUE

Drawn by the homonym collection fo Giuseppe Marotta (that collaborated to the screen-play with Cesare Zavattini and De Sica), it is an agreeable series of acute sketches that succeed in avoiding, generally, the folklore. The characters of Totò, of the exuberant Loren and, above all, of De Filippo, have entered in the collective memory. (P. Mereghetti “Dizionario dei film 1998”, translated by Alice Castoldi)

From the stories fo Giuseppe Marotta, This film in episodes is especially famous for “Pizza a credito” with the glittering pizza maker Loren, but the most beautiful are instead “I giocatori” with De Sica and “Il guappo” with Totò that makes the mad. Different episodes played by good actors. (Teletutto, translated by Alice Castoldi)

The film, also in its division in episodes, not equally happy, preserves an expressive continuity and a line that make it higher than the commercial average and that confer it a well definable style.
The accuracy with which it is stamped is also revealed in the sprightly performance and in the good photography. (Segnalzioni Cinematografiche, translated by Alice Castoldi)

NOTES

Produced by Ponti and De Laurentiis, that made cut the episode “Il funeralino” (with Teresa De Vita), because judged depressing.