Italian neo-realism meets film noir meets the exploitation picture in this fabulous post-war effort by Guiseppe De Santis. During planting season in Northern Italy’s Po Valley, an earthy rice-field worker (Silvana Mangano) falls in with a small-time criminal (Vittorio Gassman) who is planning a daring heist of the crop, as well as his femme-fatale-ish girlfriend, played by the Hollywood star Doris Dowling. Both a socially conscious look at the hardships endured by underpaid field workers and a melodrama tinged with sex and violence, this early smash for producer extraordinaire Dino De Laurentiis and director De Santis was decried for its overt sexuality by some, though it did not hurt at the box office. Restored in 2025 by Ciniteca di Bologna.