Titanus’ golden age, the 1950s and early 1960s, was also the golden age of the Italian comedy, and the studio was one of the pioneers of both the “pink neorealism” of the 1950s and the “commedia all’italiana” of the 1960s. One of the masters of the latter genre, Mario Monicelli, directed this star vehicle meant to bring together two icons: Anna Magnani and Totò, the comic star whose long screen career began with Titanus in 1937. The pair play longtime friends enlisted by a brutish thief to rob an American tourist on New Year’s Eve in Rome. The film ultimately revolves less around the criminal scheming and more around affairs of the heart, as farce alternates with moments of tenderness or melancholy, all marked with Monicelli’s gift for creating memorable and endearing characters.