GUENOT PHILIPPE First, I must admit that I am not an Italian cinema specialist. Especially the neo realism one. This movie - the first of the film maker Giuseppe De Santis - describes very well the terrific situation that many populations knew all over Europe, just after WW2. This takes place in Italy, of course, and this hopeless tale shows us the homeless, poor people: men, women and children who had to struggle every day to survive, hanging along the roads. The lead is in charge of an important amount of money, the community's payroll - the only they have saved after the war disaster - and the dol is stolen after a violent robbery. Our hero knows the chief of the robbers, and he can't speak afterwards because the leader of the hoods took his wife as hostage.Yes, it is a solid and very pessimistic drama, describing the state of mind, and not only mind, in which all these poor people had to live with. I know there were many of this kind of features, in this same period, from Italy. But I don't know them enough to speak further about this.