Renowned filmmaker Vittorio De Sica followed up his international triumph Bicycle Thieves with this enchantingly playful neorealist fairy tale, in which he combines his celebrated slice-of-life poetry with flights of graceful comedy and storybook fantasy. On the outskirts of Milan, a band of vagabonds works together to form a shantytown. When it is discovered that the land they occupy contains oil, however, it's up to the cherubic orphan Tot ̣with some divine help to save their community from greedy developers. Tipping their hats to the imaginative whimsy of Charles Chaplin and René Clair, De Sica and screenwriter Cesare Zavattini, adapting his novel, craft a big-hearted ode to the nobility of everyday people.