The film is about an old fashioned Italian with moral values of the 1930/40's ,who has to find a wife in the modern, woman's liberated society of Australia of the 1960/70's !!!Little does he know... that also Italian sexual mores & morals have changed since his departure from Italy 30 years earlier to resemble the ones of Australia !! His wife hunting task is made even more arduous by his stringent moral requirements in his lonely hearts column newspaper announcement placed in his native Italy !! Number one, requirement... that she is a virgin ("illibata" from film title)....after a long letter correspondence with the prospective bride, he finds at the airport's arrival hall a stunningly beautiful woman(Claudia Cardinale)to meet him.....for whom he falls in love with immediately !!(Needless to say the meet for the first time at the airport !!). As his friend points out "there is something strange about such beautiful woman needing to leave Italy, and marry a poor Italian immigrant on the other side of the globe !!.....she's evidently running away from something !!" His intuition was spot on.She was an ex-prostitute escaping from her pimp !! The rest of film is a farce comedy, of he not knowing of her past !! She being told by Alberto Sordi that he will take her, to her prospective husband ..........so shy is he !! The film is a delightful light comedy of illusions,mistaken identities, and cultural clash......in the age when there still existed mass Italian emigration abroad or to Northern Italy !!
From the 40's to the 70's many films have been made in Italy about these expatriate Italians ("Pane e Chocolato","I Magliari","Rocco e suoi fratelli", just to name a few !!) describing their daily grind,with its joys(few) and sorrows(more) !! Many of these films were very good !! But nowadays Italy has become a "normal" rich, West European society and film makers nowadays have difficulty finding inspiring stories to tell, which explains also the poor quality of todays Italian films .....unless the the director & film script finds some inspiring story from Italy's often tragic and difficult past !!
From the 40's to the 70's many films have been made in Italy about these expatriate Italians ("Pane e Chocolato","I Magliari","Rocco e suoi fratelli", just to name a few !!) describing their daily grind,with its joys(few) and sorrows(more) !! Many of these films were very good !! But nowadays Italy has become a "normal" rich, West European society and film makers nowadays have difficulty finding inspiring stories to tell, which explains also the poor quality of todays Italian films .....unless the the director & film script finds some inspiring story from Italy's often tragic and difficult past !!