After liberation Pagliero was one of the collaborators on the montage film Giorni di gloria, alongside Mario Serandrei, Giuseppe De Santis and Luchino Visconti. The images of the Fosse Ardeatine ditches, where 335 hostages were massacred in March of 1944, are his (the sequence, shot in August of 1944, shows the delicate job of identifying the slaughtered bodies). Around that same time, the screenplay for Roma città aperta, which was initially supposed to focus on a priest who took part in the Resistance, was integrated with the part of a militant communist. The part was given to Pagliero, a friend of Rossellini. (…) In 1946, Pagliero made his first film that was completely his responsibility, called La notte porta consiglio, but also known by the title Roma città libera, in clear reference to the film by Rossellini. (…) The film is a comedy about the disappointments that hit Rome right after the war. In a mixture of irony and bitterness, Pagliero puts two youth onscreen who, in the face of misery, take refuge in either suicide or prostitution.

Jean A. Gili, in 1895, n. 10, October 1991