French drama. The title means (colloquially) “The Thieving Magpie.”
Maria is no longer young and helps people who are even older than she is. Struggling to make ends meet, she refuses to accept her precarious situation and occasionally steals a few euros from the kind souls she cares for with extreme devotion–who, in return, adore her.
This title has a long history in European culture:
La Pie Voleuse is the French-language title of a popular Rossini opera first performed in 1817. (Kubrick used music from the overture in “A Clockwork Orange.”) The title was literally accurate in the case of the opera. Rossini’s version of the story is about a household maid who nearly goes to the gallows for stealing silver from her employers. At the last instant, it’s revealed that the silver thief was actually a magpie that had been hiding items in the church tower.
Rossini’s story was based upon a French non-musical three-act play,”La pie voleuse, ou la servante de Palaiseau” (The Thieving Magpie, or The Maid of Palaiseau), by Caigniez and D’Aubigny, performed for the first time in Paris on April 29, 1815. If you’re really into archaic French, the whole play is online.
The play, in turn, was based on “the true events of a distressing miscarriage of justice,” or so the story goes. I have no reason to doubt that, but I could neither confirm nor refute it.