- Orazio Menicotti is a night policeman in Rome. One night he is present at a quarrel between husband and wife and he volunteers to take the wife to the Police Station. While he goes around Rome with the blonde and beautiful woman, a bank is robbed. Orazio believes the local gangster is guilty and he rushes to Occhio di Bue's home. When he finds out a different truth, Orazio, Occhio di Bue and his friends will try to get back the loot to put it back before the robbery is disclosed.—Baldinotto da Pistoia
- Orazio Menicotti is an ex-convict and thief who has gone straight and is currently working as a night watchman around Rome's business district. One evening, Orazio witnesses a violent quarrel between a husband and wife while doing his rounds on a bicycle one typical Friday night. After the husband, an American, storms off the woman, who is a blonde French tourist, approaches and persuade Orazio to accompany her to the nearest police station to register a complaint. En-route in the French woman's car, she seduces Orazio into an embrace, then suddenly turns angry and dumps him on the street and drives off.
When Orazio returns to his patch he finds the door of a small bank ajar, and the safe inside empty. At first Orazio suspects the robbery is the work of his old friends. He rides to their hideout and confronts them, whom are 'Bullesye' a fair-haired thug, Maggiola, a mustachioed thug, Fischio, a thug who is an expert at pick-pocketing, and Ennio, the youngest thug who is only in his teens. However, they plausibly deny any involvement in the robbery, explaining that such a job would be too big for them.
Orazio and the gang visit another ex-criminal, named Nando Paciocchi, for advice. Sympathaizing with Orazio predicament, and also concerned because his now-legitimate business savings are with the bank in question, Paciocchi devise a plan to track down the real culprits, recover the money, and return it before the bank reopens on Monday.
Bullseye and Ennio question local thugs all around Rome while Fischio goes as a far as to get himself arrested for pick-pocketing in order to fish for information among other jail detainees at the local police station. When he is released 24 hours later, Fischio's information leads the gang to a French criminal known only as 'The Algerian, who is in league with the same American man whom Orazio saw beating his wife on the night of the robbery.
Orazio and his gang sneak into the Algerian's hideout where they find and easily steal four suitcases of cash stolen from the bank from that night, and the Algerian is sent packing. The gang returns home to their respective houses and apartments to stash the dough until it can be returned to the safe the next night.
Despite the entreaties of their various girlfriends and relatives, the mostly resist the temptation to help themselves to a cut, with the exception of Maggiola, who's wife Nunziata grabs some of the money to feed their numerous children and kicks her husband in his crotch when he tries to retrieve it.
The next day, all that remains of Orazio is to get the money back into the safe at the bank. When Orazio and his gang arrive at the bank, Orazio accidentally knocks the safe door shut. To reopen it, Paciocchi cons a top-flight safe-cracker known only as "Titillo" (The Tickler) into assisting them by committing a robbery in reverse so they can open the locked safe and return the money. At the end, the money is safely returned and Orazio and the gang are in the clear then the bank reopens with no one ever finding out about the robbery.
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