Le Havre, France, in 1949. In a town that still shows the scars of war, several friends meet up in Albert's café. One of them, Laurent, has lost his job on the docks and his marriage to Madeleine is falling apart. He knows that his wife wants to start an affair with friend, Jean Sauviot. Jean is a lonely man who is attracted to Madeleine but doesn't want to commit himself to the wife of a friend. On the day that Madeleine tells her husband that she is seeing Jean, Laurent goes looking for Jean to find an explanation. Arriving on the docks in the evening, he attacks an American sailor who looks like Jean, but the man fights back and runs away after killing Laurent accidentally. Madeleine thinks that Laurent was killed by Jean and believes that she can start a new life with her lover. The police have other ideas...

The Jacques Brothers, their temporary replacements, Yves Gérard and his troupe, as well as a famous movie star looking for a new partner, Evelyne Dorsey, are causing disruption at the "La Rose rouge" cabaret, the most famous cellar in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, to the delight of regulars.

Ersilia Drei, after a suicide attempt recounts her vicissitudes: hired as governess to the daughter of Consul Grotti she is wooed by Franco but soon after seduced by the very consul who drives her away after his daughter loses her life due to Ersilia's distraction. Because of economic difficulties she falls lower and lower until she meets Ludovico with whom she can perhaps hope for sincere love again. The consul's return, however, will lead her toward a tragic ending.

Steve McAllister, an Australian official for The New Guinea Administration, gets orders to investigate an oil discovery by Ned 'Shark-Eye' Kelly in the interior. He selects his native policeman, Sergeant-Major Towalaka, to accompany him on his "walk into hell" and then finds that a French lady doctor, Louise Dumurcet, is to go with them part of the journey. They find the malaria-stricken Jeff Clayton in a deserted village and he joins the trek. They are captured by jungle-natives but are released after Dr. Dumurcet cures the fever-stricken children of the chief.

An Italian WWII documentary by a group of neorealists.

Released in the United States in the early 50's under the title of WOMAN, this obscure early Rossellini film was made at the end of the war and completed by Marcello Pagliero. It is a sensational little tragedy about a prostitute who returns from the city to her home town where she is variously loved, spurned, and lusted over. The grim, fatalistic atmosphere bears a good deal of resemblance to the much better known contemporary masterpiece OSSESSIONE, by Luchino Visconti. In fact Massimo Girotti appears in both films. Elli Parvo is quite riveting in the main role.