Germi stars in a powerful, daring performance as a railroad worker driven by rage and confusion-emotions that seem to have carved the patterns into his rugged, ungiving face. Abusive towards the family that loves him (the story is seen through the eyes of his youngest son, a wonderful child performance by Edoardo Nevola) and unable to reach out to his coworkers following a devastating suicide under the wheels of his train, he ultimately becomes known as a scab, the beginning of the end in Italy. Though little known here, this major film remains one of Germi's most beloved in Italy, and recently was selected by the Georgian director Otar Ioselliani for Time Out's best ten films of all time. Mario Sesti wrote of this film, "In postwar cinema, only De Sica and Germi have had this mysterious ability to show in the same scene, as though each were the consequence of the other, the world's injustice and the natural inclination to goodness...the ability to convey emotion as a moral and social, nearly civic experience."