Otello Celletti (Alberto Sordi) is an unemployed ex-soldier from a small town in Latium. Since the end of the war, he has been living with his family and father at the expense of his brother-in-law, Nando. One day he receives a letter that says he has been given a job as carrier in the town's markets, despite his request to join the local police. Unwilling to accept the new job, he manages to meet the town's Mayor (Vittorio De Sica) and get the position he sought for. As a policeman, Otello can finally take revenge on all who had been teasing him during the post-war period when he was a jobless man, but soon starts having trouble with his duties. Uncapable of directing the traffic properly at a rather busy crossing, he is moved to a peripheral area where his tasks are much easier and gets here the occasion he has always been waiting for: one day he is told by a man passing by that a car got stuck not far from there and that the car is no less than Sylva Koscina's (in the role of herself).