O la borsa o la vita

Daniele, a stockbroker, learns that he has lost a large sum entrusted to him by his friend Giovanni Bensi and he does not have the nerve to tell it in person, so he writes a letter to his friend, telling him that he may collect his life insurance, as he is going to commit suicide - but he can not tell, because he will find a way to make it appear as a misfortune. The insurance policy is valid until midnight, but does not cover suicide. He asks another Stockbroker to give the letter to Bensi next day, and exists after escaping a meeting with Bensi that has arrived looking after him, "to murder him", he says. Daniele first tries to get electrocuted by grabbing a high voltage cable - but it's broken, and carries no voltage; he goes to the zoo and enters the lions' den under the pretext of saving a dog he had shoves in (unseen) - but the guards manage to take him out before the lion attacks; he tries to be hit by a speeding car - but the driver crashes it off road instead of hitting him; then he takes hold of an expert pilot's plane and tries to crash it - but a mechanic managed to jump onboard and brings the plane down safely. Daniele escapes the crowd of fans of acrobatic pilot stunts, reporters and photographers, and hides in an administrative building at the airport, where Renata, a psychiatrist, approaches him assuming he is under a psychotic fling, as she had been told by the Zoo Director. Their dialogue is full of double entendre, but it is cut by the sudden arrival of a male nurse informing the lady doctor that some patients had escaped from the clinic. Alone at last, Daniele speaks the phrases "I die, I do not die," instead of the usual "She loves me, she loves me not," while picking petals off a daisy. He is saddened when the last petal is for "I do not die." Now he is being chased also by his friend Bensi - who won big at the Stock Exchange due to a sudden reversal of the bidding, and who read Daniele's letter already - besides the Zoo Director, also a friend of his, the Lady with the Dog, and the basset dog that he had "saved" from the lions' nest - that have been chasing after him since. He evades both his persecutors and the dog - but falls again in the fans enlarged crowd. The people only leave him alone when a man, looking like a mechanic, starts the engine of an airplane inside a hangar where they all were, and the noise forces the crowd to run away. The man takes Daniele to an inn, where he introduces himself as an Anarchist. He offers him to enter a very dangerous mission, where death is certain. Daniele drinks his last cup of wine, and falls asleep, his hand falling off the table - to be licked by the basset dog... Daniele, in a dream-like scene, finds himself as the groom with a bride entering a temple in the forest, late in the evening, hunted by a dozen of men dressed alike, and revives the scene of his first suicide attempt. The Anarchist wakes him up, and takes him to the anarchists den, and tells them that he saw how Daniele had faced death with no fear. But the Doctor and some male nurses arrive to capture the madmen who had escaped from the mental hospital. When Daniele leaves the house, the tower bell strikes midnight. He is doomed. Daniele is revived from his depression by the successive arrival of all his friends, particularly Bensi who informs him that he has earned a large sum thanks to the shares Daniele had bought in his name...