A bearded and bespectacled Mastroianni gives one of his finest, most sincere performances in this rousing, up-with-the-people paean to resistance. He stars as a deceptively mild-mannered professor hiding out from the law in turn-of-the-century Turin, where he becomes the rabble-rousing leader of a local textile factory strike, a tense standoff between the haves and have-nots that threatens to tear the community apart. Comedy maestro Mario Monicelli brings a dose of compassionate humor to the proceedings, resulting in an engaging, profoundly human portrait of social struggle.