Editing A Special Day (section)

==Plot==
[[Image:Una giornata particolare2.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Gabriele ([[Marcello Mastroianni|Mastroianni]]) and Antonietta ([[Sophia Loren|Loren]]) in her living room]]
On 4 May 1938, the day Hitler visits Mussolini in Rome, Antonietta, a naïve, sentimental and overworked homemaker, stays home doing her usual domestic tasks, while her [[Italian Fascism|fascist]] husband, Emanuele, and their six spoiled children take to the streets to follow a parade. The building is empty, except for the caretaker Pauletta and a neighbor across the complex, a charming man named Gabriele. He is a radio broadcaster who has been dismissed from his job and is about to be deported to [[Sardinia]] because of his homosexuality and alleged [[Anti-fascism|anti-fascist]] stance. 

After the family's [[myna]] escapes from their apartment and flies outside Gabriele's window, Antonietta shows up at his door, asking to be let in to reach the bird. Gabriele has been interrupted from [[attempted suicide|attempting suicide]], but helps rescue the myna by offering it food, and is amused by the episode. Antonietta is surprised by his demeanor and, unaware of his sexual orientation, flirts and dances the [[rhumba|rumba]] with him.

Despite their differences, they warm to each other. Pauletta warns Antonietta that Gabriele is an [[anti-fascist]], which Antonietta finds despicable. Gabriele eventually opens up, confessing he was fired because he is a homosexual. Antonietta confides in him about her troubles with her arrogant and unfaithful husband, who, she says, has shown a preference for an educated woman. 

Throughout their interaction and conversation, each realizes that the other is oppressed by social and governmental conditioning and comes to form a new impression of the other than the one they first drew from one another. As a result, they have sex, but for different reasons. Gabriele explains that this changes nothing, as does Antonietta. (However, later, when her son reminds his mother of all the newspaper clippings she will have from the parade for her album collection, Antonietta's face reveals a look of slight indifference.)  Soon after their intimate encounter, Antonietta's family comes back home, and Gabriele is arrested. 

At the end, Antonietta sits near the window and starts reading a book Gabriele has given to her (''[[The Three Musketeers]]''). She watches as her lover leaves the complex, escorted by fascist policemen, before turning off the light and retiring to bed: Her husband is waiting there for her to beget their seventh child, whom he wants to name [[Adolf Hitler|Adolfo]].