A sizzling, feverish film noir set in Mexico City’s red-light district nightclubs, this explosive rumbera stars the sensationally versatile diva Ninón Sevilla, ‘The Golden Venus’.
Violeta, a cabaret dancer at the Club Changoo retrieves a new-born baby boy thrown by a co-worker into a bin (located directly in front of the city’s Monument to the Revolution). Against the odds, turning even to prostitution, Violeta raises the child as her own, all the while defending him from his father, the ruthless, zoot-suited gangster-pimp Rodolfo. For all the feisty maternal self-sacrifice, it’s the showstopping dance numbers that are key, outrageously sublime. One of the most emblematic films directed by Emilio “El Indio” Fernández with cinematography by acclaimed Gabriel Figueroa, and music from mambo king Damaso Pérez Prado.
