Synopsis
On September 8, 1943, in Rome, the university student Danilo tries to escape the enlistment, while his friend Michele, a mild accountant sent to the North with the staff of the ministry in which he works, manages to return to Rome where he left Ida , the girl who loves. But in Rome he is overwhelmed by fear and joins Danilo in an unlikely attempt to overcome the Gothic line. On the tram of the Castles they know a young populace, Gino, who joins them in the escape when the tram is stopped by the Germans. The three manage to save themselves in a cellar that serves as a shelter to a group of military soldiers who are in the bush, led by Orlando. Later the military (who have now absorbed the three fugitives) are joined by Edoardo, an old spouse who became a partisan, and learn that their task is to blow up a bridge over which passes the railway line that supplies the German troops. The group, which managed to get the explosive, was lost when Edoardo was arrested by the Germans. Back in Rome, Michele, Danilo and Gino learn that Edoardo has died by recommending to his former companions the accomplishment of the sabotage. The three, after undergoing a transformation that has matured them, meet in Orlando and prepare the sabotage of the bridge. The action succeeds, despite the difficulties; but in the enterprise Michele loses his life, redeeming his physical ineptitude with a heroic act. The sabotage succeeded so well that the German command attributed it to American paratroopers. No one will ever know that a group of ordinary men knew how to live their "lions day".