"[4] This fantasy tale recounts the story of Totò, discovered as a baby in a cabbage patch and subsequently adopted by Lolotta, a wise and kind old woman.

Upon reaching adulthood, Totò (Francesco Golisano), departs the orphanage and settles in a shantytown squatter colony on the outskirts of Milan.

[5] Totò's organizational skills, honed during his time at the orphanage, and his inherent kindness and optimistic outlook inherited from Lolotta, bring order and a sense of well-being to the colony's inhabitants.

Through Totò's genuine faith, the police wagons disintegrate, and the squatters soar away on broomsticks taken from Milan's central square.

Vittorio De Sica wrote that he made the film in order to show how the "common man" can exist given the realities of life: "It is true that my people have already attained happiness after their own fashion; precisely because they are destitute, these people still feel - as the majority of ordinary men perhaps no longer do - the living warmth of a ray of winter sunshine, the simple poetry of the wind.

And although this uncommon vein of fancy is away from De Sica's previous line, the great director has brought up from his digging a liberal return of purest gold.

[12] The staff at Variety magazine gave the film a positive review and wrote, "The sharp satire on the oil-greedy industrialist is handled in a broader, perhaps exaggerated manner, and pic is liberally sprinkled with intelligent humor, much of it ironic.