Like Open City, The Bandit examines the layers of violence inwhich individuals were caught up, amid the turmoil of war-torn Italy.But neorealism à la Alberto Lattuada was less immediate than thatof Rossellini, and The Bandit's heightened mood reminds one of theromantic fatalism of pre-war French crime dramas like Quai des Brumes,which also were firmly rooted in the rootlessness of contemporarycircumstances. Ernesto (Amedeo Nazzari) returns from a Germanprisoner-of-war camp to find his mother dead, his sister disappeared,his home gone. It is a portrait of bitter disappointment: in the film'smost famous scene, Ernesto follows a pair of pretty legs into a brothelonly to find that they belong to his own sister. After killing her pimp,Ernesto becomes a man on the run, linked to the seductive and ruthlessLydia (Anna Magnani) and her criminal gang. Ernesto tries to maintain asense of honor but his Robin Hood instincts are thwarted at everyturn-and Magnani is no Maid Marian as the two become the quarry of aman-hunt in the hills outside Turin.