Concessionaire of a fish stall at the Mercati Generali in Rome, Betty Mancini lives with the anarchist Luiso Malerba, an enemy not only of the bourgeoisie and luxury, but also of work. The daughter of a butcher of dubious honesty, with whom she is at odds but whose methods of making money she appreciates, Betty struggles, however, to win the very goods that Luiso despises. And not only does she toil from dawn to dusk, she also gets into debt, bribing municipal officials and orphanage directors with generous ‘bribes’, swindling colleagues and, finally, selling fish of uncertain freshness. Thus, he manages to buy himself a luxurious cold storage room, to ‘carpet’ the floors of his house, threatening the supremacy of his rival Fernando Proietti. Then, all of a sudden, the downfall: either because Proietti reacts by lowering the prices of his fish to a level that the woman cannot sustain; or because the very honest health inspector, whose mistress she has become, does not agree to keep her stall, Betty has to give up the General Markets and make do with a modest stall in Campo de’ Fiori.
Genre: comedy
Cast
Giovanna Ralli: Elisabetta Mancini “Betty”
Stefano Satta Flores: Gigino Mancuso
Mario Carotenuto: Mr Mancini
Franco Citti: Luiso Malerba
Glauco Onorato: Fernando Proietti
Renato Scarpa: institute director
Ennio Antonelli: fishmonger
Soundtrack Luis Bacalov
