Marga Lopez (Lina Romay) and Rosalba Villa (Ana Stern)
are two prostitutes in a small, corrupt South American village. Marga
falls in love with Chano (Antonio Mayans acting as “Robert Foster”), a
freedom fighter posing as a guard at the local prison, which is run by
the corrupt Governor Blanco (Ricardo Palacios) and a sadistic wardress
(Veronica Setton). Marga and Rosalba are arrested for hiding Chano, who
escapes back to the prison before he is caught. After various tortures
and indignities, Chano helps Marga and Rosalba to escape and tells them
he will meet them with a boat at the port on the other side of a wooded
area.
There is a lot of misinformation circulating about this movie, so much
so you have to wonder if anybody’s really seen it. First of all, it was
made in 1983 – not 1986, as the IMDb claims. Secondly, the various books
on Franco all relate a synopsis that has nothing to do with this film,
but is closer to an ass-backwards reading of a later Franco film,
“Mujeres Ancorraladas” (1986), which is often described as an alternate
cut of this movie. Well, yes and no. “Mujeres Ancorraladas” was made up
of maybe 2/3rds of footage recycled from this film and 1/3rd of new
material. While it’s not a particularly good example of Franco’s WIP
movies, this rare subtitled copy brings out the beauty of Franco’s
noir-like script and the romantic love scenes between Romay and Mayans.
In this area, it has moments worthy of “Bahia Blanca.”
