In a run-down South American town, four men are paid to drive trucks loaded with nitroglycerin into the jungle through to the oil field. Friendships are tested and rivalries develop as they embark upon the perilous journey.

Set in a somber, shadowy Venice, the film opens with the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Carlo Pavani, a well‑respected executive at Assicurazioni Generali. His absence causes much concern in his upper‑class household. Several days later, his body is found washed up onto the steps of a palazzo on the lagoon.

Foreign spies steal the formula for a revolutionary explosive created by an Italian scientist and to decrypt the secret code they kidnap his secretary who knows about it.

A famous painting by Antonello da Messina, "the man with a gray glove", has been entrusted to an old restorer. When, subsequently, the painting is withdrawn from the restorer's studio and exposed, the art critic Drago discovers that it is not the original, but a copy.

A man drives his car off a cliff in an apparent suicide. One insurance investigator is not so sure it was an accident or suicide and gets 48 hours to prove his case.

Silvio refuses to fight for the fascists and joins the resistance with Elena. After the war, his vitriolic newspaper articles cause him to be sentenced to imprisonment.

Attempting to cover the fault of one of his subordinates, an officer of the Napoleonic army is condemned to death for treason.

The Honourable Mario Agosti, incorruptible politician, has a twin brother, Filippo, hedonist and swindler, the true black sheep of the family. Posing as the illustrious brother, Filippo comes into contact with the world of politics and finance, and is not slow to profit from the powerful characters whom he gets to know. Mario will have to serve the paradoxical consequences.

A glamorous female singer Zazà has an affair with a passerby engineer Dufresne. But when Zazà impatiently comes to him in Paris she finds out that he is married and even has a daughter. He wants to escape from his relatives with Zazà, but, disillusioned and exhausted, she rejects his proposition and insists on his coming back to his family.