David and his wife Gilda transform their beautiful villa in a brothel, which are home to several characters. Odile, the daughter of a woman tortured by mercenaries, meets in the villa one of the torturers and want to relive over his own body the suffering endured by the mother. An ambassador who was abandoned by his companion, imposes its new partner to take his place. An eighteen year old, very open-minded, staged an orgy.

A town awaits the arrival of a gunslinger to help defeat a gang of bandits, but a trio of misfits is mistaken for the anticipated relief.

La Sciantosa is part of a project created by writer/director Alfredo Gianetti for the Italian TV. The objective was to portrait a hundred years of Italian history through three movies, all of them with Anna Magnani. The other two are "1943: un incontro" and "L'autmobile". In this first movie, La Magnani is Flora Torres, a "sciantosa" (kind of a small stage diva) who is forgotten during the WWI, living only to remember her past glory. One day she receives a letter to present herself to the high command. There, Flora is called to go to the front and entertain the troops. Along with her maid Cristina, Flora goes to the front. There they are welcomed by the young private Tonino (Massimo Ranieri). Flora starts to act like a prima donna, making absurd demands to everyone. But when she is about to present herself, the vision of the wounded soldiers makes her change her way