It has an all-star Italian and international cast, including Americans Jack Palance, Ernest Borgnine; Greek Melina Mercouri and French Fernandel, Anouk Aimée and Lino Ventura.

At the morning of a normal day of a Naples that begins to hear complex and not always positive effects of the economic boom, a stentorian voice (Nicola Rossi-Lemeni) which seems to come down from heaven announces that "At 18 begins the Last Judgement!".

The plot is fragmented into a series of scenarios and stories intertwined: the preparation of the great ball of the Duke to whom all Naples is requested, the struggle to get dressed up in the poorest districts, bored rich you are courting, a husband who accidentally discovers his wife with her lover, a cynical imagine that ekes out a living selling children in America, a young man of good company made the subject of sneers from fierce populace, the unlikely defense of a lobbyist by a wordy lawyer (the by De Sica), and the impact of the increasingly mysterious voice shaking innovation of this human variety.

Announced time, the city is impacted by a terrible flood (the mysterious voice that has already passed the stage of sanctions?)

The sun came out, people rushed to the ball of the Duke and soon everything is forgotten, the sound of an ironic "Lullaby", coined shortly before by a hypocritical and false slavery.