A famous actress arrives in an Austrian chalet to spend an evening with friends. The woman is gotten drunk by the guests, and when she falls unconscious, friends remove her makeup to look at the imperfections of her face, always believed beautiful by her fans.
"Civic Spirit"
A man is wounded in a traffic accident. A woman stops the car and offers to take him to the hospital. The woman, however, only does this to pass the road traffic. When she arrives at her destination, she throws him out.
"The Earth Seen from the Moon"
This comic episode, directed by Pasolini, tells the story of a red-headed father and son, Ciancicato and Baciu Miao (Totò and Ninetto Davoli). Ciancicato has just lost his wife and wants to marry again. Ciancicato finds a deaf girl among the shacks on the outskirts of Rome and makes her his bride. To buy a better house nearby, he concocts a plan for her to threaten to commit suicide (distraught by her sick children) by jumping from the Colosseum, and take a collection to save her, but she slips on a banana peel and falls, and is buried next to his former wife. Soon after, she reappears at their home and their happy life continues. The story ends with the moral: "Being dead or alive is the same thing."
"The Sicilian Belle"
In this short episode, a Sicilian woman tells her father a man made a pass at her; he retaliates by massacring the family.
"An Evening like the Others"
Clint Eastwood plays a husband to Silvana Mangano. The short centers on Mangano's feeling that she is unappreciated in her marriage. Scenes alternate between real-life and fantasy. In real life, Mangano expresses her feelings to an Eastwood in subdued ways with hints, and leading questions. In the fantasy sequences she expresses her frustrations dramatically, by yelling, striking, and shooting Eastwood. In the final fantasy sequence, she imagines herself as a glamorous star, walking along in an evolving series of haute couture while being ogled by a growing crowd of middle-aged businessmen. She performs a strip tease for them, which causes the fantasy-Eastwood to kill himself. We return to real-life, Mangano smiles, removes her glasses and goes to sleep, next to a snoring Eastwood.
Le streghe was never released outside of Europe as United Artists bought the film when Clint Eastwood's career began to ascend. United Artists decided not to release it in theaters but instead kept it in its library vault to prevent its viewing.[3]
