The Bandit

Magnani is a fierce femme fatale in this striking neorealist noir. Upon returning to Italy from the war, ex-POW Ernesto (the "Italian Errol Flynn" Amedeo Nazzari) takes stock of the shattered pieces of his life in bombed-out Turin. When he's unwittingly implicated in a murder, he's taken in by a crime ring presided over by Magnani's glamorous gangster's moll. But Ernesto's idealism -- he fashions himself a gun-toting Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor -- doesn't sit well with the rest of the outfit.