Vittorio De Sica's tribute to Napoli where he spent several years as a youth. It's a six part anthology linked only by the location (in the U. S. two of the segments were cut, but have now been restored). The portmanteau film blends comedy and drama and has themes of jealousy, sexuality, greed and vanity throughout - all aspects of Italian life as it were.
The most serious chapter, "Teresa", stars Silvanna Mangano as a tainted title character trapped into a marriage of convenience. The most famous is the comedic "Pizza on Credit" featuring Sophia Loren in her breakout role as the duplicitous wife of a humble sidewalk restaurant owner. The best is the briefest, "Funeralino" which is an almost dialog-less journey of a woman (Theresa De Vita) who leads a funeral procession through the streets of the city for her deceased young child. Simple, poignant. De Sica himself stars as "The Gambler" as a henpecked Count who has to sneak away from the Countess in order to place penny-ante bets. The other shorts star Toto (who got top billing) and Eduardo de Filippo.
As with most omnibus films, the quality varies made all the more noticeable in that the opening and closing ones are the weakest. The movie did make Loren a huge star and De Sica does manage to do more than merely make a picturesque travelogue. There is some real poetry in depicting a wide variety of Naples' inhabitants and Mangano is superb.
