Rome 11:00

Two hundred women line up on a Rome staircase to answer a wanted ad for one modest secretarial job. Luciana Renzoni (Carla Del Poggio) and Simona (Lucia Bosè) are among them, and so are Caterina (Lea Padovani), Cornelia (Maria Grazia Francia) and Gianna (Eva Vanicek). Giuseppe De Santis builds it from a real accident in January 1951, and what he keeps coming back to is how each woman, stuck on the same steps, looks at the one standing next to her.