Campane a martello

Campane a Martello takes place in Italy shortly after World War II. The Allied soldiers are leaving the country, and as a result, the Roman authorities are expelling all of their prostitutes who came from other towns. One of them is Agostino (played by Gina Lollabrigida) who, unlike her friends, has managed to save her money and she wants to open a shop with it. So she has to race home to retrieve her money before the townspeople find out about her past. Once there however, she is surprised to find herself being given a hero's welcome and is quickly caught up in a conflict between the town's mayor and a priest who is running an orphanage for the children fathered by the departed soldiers. The movie ends up being a satire about greed, hypocrisy and self-importance. It is more amusing than funny and its characters are paper thin, but the movie has a nice cynical tone and never veers off into sentimentality. On the whole, it is worth watching.