Tina, an old lady and detective stories buff, moves to town in the house of a god-daughter of hers whose husband is a private dick. She thinks she will be able to help him with his inquests. He does not agree with her and tries to discourage her by any possible means.

In this satire inspired by Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector (aka The Inspector General) and transported to fascist era Italy, the (supposed) incognito visit of a Roman fascist official to a tiny country town shakes deeply the ruling class and their lack of integrity.

Based on 'Il fu Mattia Pascal', one of Pirandello's many stories concerning the transitory nature of the intangibles "truth" and "identity". Mattia Pascal is a downtrodden average man, treated like trash by his fiancée, scorned by his associates, and cheated out of his inheritance by contemptuous relatives. The dispirited Pascal heads to Monte Carlo, accruing a fortune and also assuming the identity of a less fortunate gambler who killed himself. The "new" Pascal is treated with a dignity and respect that overwhelms him--and nearly kills him.

A psychiatric-clinic medical director runs some tests on two patients, the Ragionier Antonio Vignanelli and Cavalier Peppino Caprioli, so they must retrieve some memories of family life in order to understand their mental illness.

A group of Italians take a flight to Sweden: among them there are the tourists, and the immigrants.

A reporter and a promiscuous young woman try to solve a series of child killings in a remote southern Italian town rife with superstition and a distrust of outsiders.

The mental illness affecting young Dario, one of the two sons of the Dominici family living in a council building in Rome, disrupts the lives of all its members.

Dora, driven away from her town by malicious gossip following her first love affair, has a series of short-lived adventures until she falls in love with Nino, a small time crook. In Parma, a police officer courts her but she keeps thinking of Nino.

A humble organ grinder is married to a barren woman. The pair would like to adopt a child but are too poor. Suddenly a miracle seems to happen: she's pregnant. Unfortunately the baby dies and the man is forced, through hardship, to buy one from a chorus girl who wants to get rid of him. After a short time even his wife dies and the poor man brings up the child on his own, singing in taverns to make ends meet. The father and son's humble life is upset when the real father of the boy reappears and wants his child back. The two men fight to get the custody of the boy.