Germi's love of John Ford is evident in his treatment of Italy's Wild West, the battle for control of the mountainous South after the collapse of the "Kingdom of the Two Sicilys." As fighting rages between crack bersaglieri (sharpshooters) and brigands for the liberation of a small town in Puglia, a woman kidnapped by the guerrilla chief Raffa Raffa is now dishonored in the eyes of the village. "In this picture, there is no place for either patriotic celebrations or Marxist critiques....The film expresses a rather brutal historical determinism. The winner will be the side that uses its own resources more cynically, and that has behind it the power and violence of the law. Isn't this very lucidity regarding politics-a lucidity containing a buried vein of skepticism-what makes this a smarter, more nonconformist film than it looked when it was first released?" (Mario Sesti)