Rua Sem Sol (1954)

As the beginning credits are displayed, we see two agents of the law on their way to arrest someone. The suspect is Marta, a young woman accused of having murdered her lover, a drug dealer and nightclub owner. She is taken in custody and tells her entire life to the cops, which is displayed in a flashback. An orphan, she was adopted by a couple who later gave her, by natural means, a sister, who was born blind. Her foster parents died, first her mother, then her father, leaving the two daughters in financial straits. She supported herself and her blind sister by working as a seamstress at home. This soon became insufficient to make ends meet, and she switched to making jewels at a jewelry store. This still didn't bring her enough income, and one day law officers came into her house and assessed her household items, which were later taken as payment to hanging debts. When her sister injured herself during a fall and needed an x-ray, she, in a desperate act, stole a jewel from her place of work in the hopes of selling it. An expert's assessment, however, judged it to be a fake. Upon leaving the expert's office, she was approached by a man who had been watching her and threatened to turn her over to the police. Frightened, she accompanied the man into a restaurant and then into a nightclub, where he blackmailed her into becoming his lover. She seized the opportunity of his momentary absence to flee with the money he left her to pay the bill. Days later, her sister's exam results showed she had a serious injury which needed surgery. She returned to the nightclub of earlier and asked the owner for a job as a taxi dancer. The owner, taking an interest in her, gave her the job. She could thus pay for her sister's surgery. After some time, her boss proposed that they became lovers. She didn't immediately agree. Upon leaving the nightclub, she was seen by a longtime friend of the family, who was the only one who remained a close friend after her father died. He scolded her for her choice of work, making her promise she would quit. Meanwhile, at home, her sister was in a steady relationship with the doctor who helped her when she first became ill. He told Marta that she could see again if she underwent surgery in Europe. The next day Marta, despite her promise, returned to the nightclub and, without being seen, witnessed a quarrel between her boss and another man over money. The man left in a rage. As she was leaving her spot, her boss heard her and called her. He then made advances on her and she resisted. She grabbed his gun, shot, and then lost consciousness. When she came to, her boss was lying dead beside her. The flashback is interrupted at this point. Everything seems to incriminate her, but the police is more interested in arresting the dead man's accomplice than in jailing her. They submit a series of mugshots to her, and she recognizes the man she had seen quarreling with her boss. They arrest that man, and he confesses to not even having left the nightclub after the quarrel and having returned to see the nightclub owner a few moments later, only to find him and Marta lying unconscious. He shot his nemesis on the back of the neck and left (the police knew that he was killed by a shot in the back of the neck, so that exculpates Marta of the murder). Marta was found guilty only of theft. Her sister traveled to Italy where she got married to her fiancé and had an operation which made her able to see. Later they all went to Italy and lived happily ever after.

The plot combines realism and ridiculous tear-jerking melodrama. The execution is unprofessional at times (especially in the scenes not directed by the principal diretor). Some parts of it, on the other hand, are well directed and exude a realistic atmosphere, especially the scenes at the nightclub.

Rating: 32