Helena goes to the French coastline to meet up with old flame Roy. At Roy's swanky house Helena is told by a man at the door named Frank that Roy is preoccupied with another woman. Helena immediately hits it off with Frank only for things to turn sour after a gang of vicious thugs break into the house.

At the end of World War II, shallow, self-centered Mara is the prettiest girl in her small Italian village; Bebo is a Communist partisan who is finding it difficult to adjust to the dull banalities of life in peacetime. When Mara’s father, a passionate Communist, declares that his daughter will marry the returning hero, her reactions range from joy to bitter resentment.