Una notte dopo l'opera

A heated sporting rivalry divides Giorgio Roberti and Fausto Renzi, both capable marathon runners. After a defeat the latter contemplates abandoning competitive sports, but is convinced by Silvia Delotti, daughter of the sports organizer of the "Aurora", to return to his father's "stable". The rivalry thus also becomes sentimental between Giorgio, already in love with Silvia, and Fausto.

The two drivers Giovanni and Gaetano are friends. Gaetano, bold and ruthless, thrives in the black market, while Giovanni, who is a naive and fundamentally honest worker from the North of Italy, cannot get any profit and his wife, an energetic and talkative Roman woman, can't help blaming him for his poor business skills. Returning from a trip to Naples, he brings home a little hungry orphan, Nello. At first Giovanni's wife doesn't want the boy, but then she begins to like him. The little boy does whatever he can to help the family. Nello's father, who everybody thought to have died during the war, finds his little son and, being a rich business man, he employs the good and generous Giovanni. Meanwhile the former friend Gaetano is caught by the police and convicted for his illegal trades.

Thanks to wartime smuggling Gioconda Perfetti, a roman fruit vendor, becomes very rich. She leaves her shop and moves to a magnificent villa which once belonged to a count. She also becomes involved with some very dubious characters who profit from her ignorance and cheat her out of her money.