A marginal group celebrates Christmas Eve singing and dancing in the street while a millionaire celebrates the feast offering a great dinner to his friends. The millionaire receives a telegram from his sister in America who announces her visit after more than twenty years without seeing each other…
Paola, a Milan call girl, returns home to her village in the Abruzzi mountains in an attempt to go straight. Rejected by her father, blackmailed by a former lover, and lusted after by her brother-in-law, she turns to her beloved sister for support. Denied succor, like so many of Rossellini’s isolated figures, Paola awaits the arrival of her fiancé, who has offered her a new start, but instead decides that life is untenable.
