Franca Valeri is a good, hardworking girl, staying with her aunt and uncle in Roma. She holds down a job as a public stenographer in a hotel. Her cousin, Sophia Loren, is forbidden to work by her old-fashioned father. All the men want Signorina Loren, and Signorina Valeri feels the emptiness in her life.
Dino Risi's movie is a swirling mass of confusion. At first, you think the movie will be about the two women, but soon enough, the men enter the story, and their own stories bid fair to take it over: Raf Vallone, the aspiring boxer, who seems to like Signorina Valeri, but pays attention to La Loren; Maurizio Arena, the studio photographer; Alberto Sordi, the shady character trying to sell Arena a car he clearly doesn't own; and Vittorio de Sica, a poet with a line who leeches off of everyone. They come together, they disperse, and in the end, it is Signorina Valeri, who starts off the movie as seemingly the comic center of it, who winds up alone and drifting.
Of course, I looked at it because of de Sica and Signorina Loren. It turns soon into an ensemble piece, and by the end, it is Signorina Valeri who carries the film.
Dino Risi's movie is a swirling mass of confusion. At first, you think the movie will be about the two women, but soon enough, the men enter the story, and their own stories bid fair to take it over: Raf Vallone, the aspiring boxer, who seems to like Signorina Valeri, but pays attention to La Loren; Maurizio Arena, the studio photographer; Alberto Sordi, the shady character trying to sell Arena a car he clearly doesn't own; and Vittorio de Sica, a poet with a line who leeches off of everyone. They come together, they disperse, and in the end, it is Signorina Valeri, who starts off the movie as seemingly the comic center of it, who winds up alone and drifting.
Of course, I looked at it because of de Sica and Signorina Loren. It turns soon into an ensemble piece, and by the end, it is Signorina Valeri who carries the film.