In Romagna, an Italian district, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the owners of an estate are the professor Edoardo, always lost in reveries, and his wife Maria. They have a son, Robertino, who has a friend: Zvanin. Zvanin is the son of Mingòn and Marianna, two peasants. Dolly is an american cousin and every summer she comes in Romagna. The movie narrates their stories over the years until the post I World War period.

Agnese has many men who woo her and live with her cousin Cesira, who has the opposite problem with men and wishes she would also have men woo her.

When elderly pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari returns to his boarding house from a protest calling for a hike in old-age pensions, his landlady demands her 15,000-lire rent by the end of the month or he and his small dog will be turned out onto the street. Unable to get the money in time, Umberto fakes illness to get sent to a hospital, giving his beloved dog to the landlady's pregnant and abandoned maid for temporary safekeeping.

Eugenia is a daughter of a wealthy but miserly man living a simple life in the provincial town of Saumur. Eugenia's inexperience leads her to fall in love with an unworthy man.

A comedy about an unemployed fellow who goes to live with his brother and runs into trouble with his brother's overbearing wife.

The film portrays the comic adventures of a group of summertime travellers. Produced at the height of the fascist era, Treno popolare was nonetheless free of propaganda, and featured the first film score by the legendary composer Nino Rota.