New Year's Eve in Rome. Three lonely character who lie about their solitude to everyone even to themselves. Deep down is that solitude and a a sense of rejection what throws them together. Magnani, as a blonde film extra that has Kim Novak as her model, Totò as a pathetic, old petty con-man and Ben Gazzara as a young, good looking and relatively inept thief, will join forces at cross purposes in a film that is, simultaneously, outrageously funny and deeply moving. Anna Magnani had already won an Oscar for "The Rose Tattoo" and this was a return home and a a new chapter in her collaboration with her old friend Antonio De Curtis, known as Totò. They are magic together and Mario Monicelli knows how to choreograph the sequences for this two amazing artists. The crowded scenes inside a Hotel Restaurant during the party leading to midnight and a new year are absolutely sensational. Not to be missed.
