Plot: In Naples, forty year old Filumena Marturano has been rushed home from the bakery where she works being deathly ill. When she requests not a doctor but a priest at this time, fifty year old multiple business owner Domenico Soriano - Dummi' in more familiar settings - who is looking over her, reflects on the twenty-two years they have known each other. Their initial meeting was during the war in a house of ill repute, she a naive and illiterate seventeen year old fresh from the country working there, he a customer, although not hers. It wouldn't be until two years later that they would run into each other again and begin this off and on relationship, in which he would always have the upper hand, manipulating her and the situation to his benefit which he knew he could do because of his relative economic standing compared to hers, and the fact that he knew that she has always been in love with him. The nature of their relationship was also as it was due to his frequent absences for work, often months at a time. This situation allowed him to have other women in his life at the same time. The story then shifts to an aspect of Filumena's life of which Dummi' has been unaware, namely her long term relationships with three men he doesn't know or know of: Umberto, a student, Riccardo, a glove salesman, and Michele, a mechanic, the three who in turn don't know each other. When Dummi' finds out about the existence of the three, he has to decide how it will affect his life and his thoughts of Filumena.
Alternative Plot: When handsome, successful Domenico (Marcello Mastroianni) first meets the sexy young waif Filomena (Sophia Loren) in Naples during World War II, he is instantly smitten. Flash forward to the postwar years, and the two meet again, sparking a passionate affair that spans two decades. But when Filomena -- who has now become Domenico's kept woman and has secretly borne his children -- learns that her lover is planning to wed another, she stops at nothing to hook him into marrying her instead.
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