In 1943, during the war, Francesca, widowed, moves with her three daughters to her country house, to get away from the bombing of Bologna. In the villa she finds her childhood friends and her old love Guido, who has not forgotten her. Francesca has a passion for everything that comes from America, like music and cinema. She even tells her daughters that her husband who died in the war would actually leave for the USA, where he would live.

Young Catherine Morelli, who lives in Rome, goes to Geneva to find romance at her father's wedding. There she begins a near nymphomaniac pursuit of a mystery man called Gregory.

After a bank robbery gone wrong, a crook goes on the run across Belgium to escape the police, clear himself of a crime that he did not commit, and protect his girlfriend from a shady lawyer.

An Italian official's wife is kidnapped, and the kidnappers demand that a notorious prisoner be released in order for the man to get his wife back. He gets the man released--but then kidnaps him himself, in order to ensure that the man's colleagues don't kill his wife. Enraged, the gang sets out to free their compatriot and kill the man who took him.