A rich merchant, Antonio is depressed for no good reason, until his good friend Bassanio comes to tell him how he's in love with Portia. Portia's father has died and left a very strange will: only the man that picks the correct casket out of three (silver, gold, and lead) can marry her. Bassanio, unfortunately, is strapped for cash with which to go wooing, and Antonio wants to help, so Antonio borrows the money from Shylock, the money-lender. But Shylock has been nursing a grudge against Antonio's insults, and makes unusual terms to the loan. And when Antonio's business fails, those terms threaten his life, and it's up to Bassanio and Portia to save him.

The paths of guests and employees cross at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz: A chambermaid experiences financial difficulties. A guest has been robbed. A thief is caught. An assistant cook is promoted to waiter. And there’s no shortage of love in this small world of the great Hotel Palace. Keeping an orderly eye over proceedings is the hotel’s beautiful patron, whose heart is in the right place.

An Englishman has been working in the US so long he now speaks with an American accent. He is drafted into the British Army during WWII but is injured and loses his memory. Because he talks like an American, the doctors repatriate him to the States where he is housed with a New York family. After the war they all travel throughout Europe, searching for the women he still remembers in the hope of restoring his lost memory

A young cabaret trainer, Viola, who has just compromised herself in a case, flees. On the train, she meets Dominique, who lives in a cabin in Tuscany, on the edge of the marshes. Dominique and Viola settle in the hut and soon the young woman is expecting a baby...

Daniele, a 16 year old boy, runs away from boarding school after a catastrophic bombing, only to find his home destroyed and his parents dead. Alone in the world he meets Tullio, a disbanded boy who lives in an abandoned area with some girls, Carla, an eighteen year old girl who works as a prostitute, Giulia, younger and sick of tuberculosis, and a girl, Maria.