After years of detachment Alberto Valli returns to the home of Margherita, his widowed mother, with his mistress Germaine.

In a village, the pharmacist and the innkeeper have an intense rivalry fuelled by the fact that they were once romantically involved many years before. To spite her rival, the innkeeper arranges to have her nephew set up a second pharmacy to take business away him. Unbeknownst to them a romance is developing between the younger generation of the families.

Three friends, a mechanic, a clockmaker, and a night warden are engaged to three sisters but are broke and cannot get married and pay the rent. They convince their future father-in-law to buy three little flats for them but the man buys them from a swindler and the friends run the risk of going to prison.

Rosa Lulli, has an illegitimate 20-year-old son, named Stefano, who lives with her in the house of Professor Arlotta. Stefano is in love with Lydia, the granddaughter of the professor. The couple has a gambling addiction: the need to obtain a large sum to meet gambling debts, which pushes him to accept the loving invitation of Jeannette, owner of a dance school, where Stefano goes to play.

When a veteran marshal is sent to a small town, he quickly falls for two women: a midwife and an earthy young woman nicknamed "Frisky".

Gina is the daughter of a provincial newsstand dealer and spends her time reading pulp magazines and dreaming of a glamorous vocation on the big city. She enters a beauty contest in a nearby city, without her father's permission, and, en route, meets Franco, a salesman.

Carlo wins some money and decides to go to Rome to celebrate, but he gets his money stolen on the train. He tries to find a friend of his for a loan. Unfortunately, he is at his wedding at the church. When Carlo goes there he met his runaway bride...