In Sicily, the mine worker Carmelo "Mimí" Mardocheo votes in the Communist Party candidate instead of in the Mafia's one believing that the suffrage is secret. After the elections, he loses his job and cannot find any other job in his village that is controlled by the mobster Don Calogero. He leaves his wife Rosalia with his family and travels to Turin expecting to find a job. He finds an illegal position in the civil construction that is also explored by the Mafia and when a coworker dies in an accident, he finds that the mobsters have dumped his body on the road. However, he does not report the crime to the police and lies to the mobster Salvatore Tricarico telling that he belongs to the family of a powerful mobster. Mimi gets a metallurgic position and joins the Communist Party. Then he fall in love with the virgin Trotskyite street vendor Fiorella Meneghini and they have a boy. When Mimi witness the mobster Vico Tricarico executing several men in a hotel, he survives but he does not report to the police. Mimi is transferred to Catania in a supervisory position against his will. He brings Fiore and their son to Sicily, but he is still married with Rosalia but he claims that he is ill and does not have sex with her. When Mimi learns that Rosalia is pregnant, he finds that he is a cuckold and plots a scheme to seduce and knock up Amalia Finocchiaro, who is the wife of Rosalia's lover. But his revenge does not work as planned. 故事发生在民风热情奔放的意大利西西里岛，咪咪（吉安卡罗·吉安尼尼 Giancarlo Giannini 饰）是一名普通的采石工人，当地正在进行选举，咪咪因为站错了队而遭到了开除。无奈之下，咪咪只得离开了妻子前往都灵谋生，在那里，他成为了一名钢铁工人，还加入了共产党。 在都灵，咪咪结识了一位名叫菲亚（玛丽安杰拉·梅拉托 Mariangela Melato 饰）的美丽女子，菲亚很快就吸引了咪咪的注意令他坠入情网，最终，两人走到了一起。幸福快乐的时光没过多久，咪咪就得知了自己的妻子怀孕的消息。咪咪离开了菲亚回到故乡，才发现妻子腹中怀的并不是自己的孩子。
