[citation needed] An elderly man, Mr John Cartner Ronson (born 5 January 1889, died about 1965) has lost his wife some 9 years previously and now lives a humdrum life in a small flat on a modern housing estate.

[3] The film is intended to demonstrate Mr Cartner Ronson's solitude in old age and isolation from society in spite of the great contribution he has made in his earlier life as a miner, soldier and gardener.

[2] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "This harrowing picture of the affluent society's Umberto D is stating such a recognisable truth that few could watch it unmoved.

An old man's life has, in a way, become the ultimate expression of that much discussed twentieth century condition, the failure of communication – a thing so much sadder in practice than in theory.

The film is shot lingeringly to extract every ounce of pity from an audience, and one remembers as characteristic a scene, photographed from the tidy, unused dining room through the hatch to the kitchen where the old man eats his lunch in isolation while the commentary tells us about the preparations for the crowded Sundays of his childhood when his mother used to say 'You never know who might come.