Camino del infierno

Granted that a movie featuring legendary Mexican film actors Pedro Armendariz, Leticia Palma, and Ramón Gay, based on a story by Luis Spota, and directed by the experienced Miguel Morayta, is difficult to turn down. Unfortunately, this time around the experience is not very pleasant. Leticia Palma plays Leticia (yes Leticia), a heartless prostitute who sings at a casino owned by her lover Tony (Wolf Ruvinskis). Leticia, who is only interested in cash, is the mastermind behind a plot to rob Tony of $300,000 pesos of casino earnings. For that purpose she uses León (Ramón Gay), the casino administrator who is madly in love with her, and Pedro (yes Pedro Armendariz) an ex-convict she recruits using cold blackmail. The robbery goes terribly wrong with Tony and León killing each other and Pedro badly shot in one hand. Leticia, waiting outside in the getaway car, tries to run over Pedro when she realizes the failure of the operation. Pedro survives and savagely beats her up.

From then on the film focuses on their relationship while they hide from the law. Faster than you can say "quesadilla", these two disgustingly evil human beings experience a change of heart. Without any warning to the film watcher, Leticia & Pedro stop being at each other´s throats and fall in love. They get married and turn into goodie-goodie law abiding citizens. In my opinion the reformation happens too fast and it is quite unbelievable. But do not think that this is the end of the film. It simply can not be since Pedro & Leticia have a debt to society and Mexican melodramas do not allow any evildoers to get off without punishment. Things get more complicated but I will say no more about the plot. You will not get any spoilers from me. However don´t say I didn´t warn you about the messy script which aborts every opportunity to deliver a fine film noir of sorts. Quite a shame since "Camino del infierno" is full of possibilities, but went on the roadway to hell.

Uninspired direction by Miguel Morayta, obviously low production values and artificial solutions to the dramatic situations proposed by novelist Luis Spota, heavily affect this film noir-musical-melodrama that tells the story of a mean chanteuse that falls for a macho thief who hides his ruthlessness behind a false mask of nobility. Unfortunately for the woman she turns from calculating bitch to angelic wife but then gets sick, listens to bad medical advice and goes into a rampage of self- destruction while her body rots. Good moments include the singer's musical numbers (dubbed by Toña la Negra), the duel between her suitors that ends with both men dead, the surgery that takes place in the warehouse where the thief hides with the singer after he is shot, and an ending worthy of a horror movie. Excessive histrionics by the complete cast do not help much, except for singer Alvarado and wrestler Wolf Ruvinskis who look and sound fresh compared to the professional actors. It is a pleasure though to watch beautiful and sensual Leticia Palma, an actress whose career was ended by scandal when she was accused of stealing papers from the Mexican actors' guild, which was later revealed as a case orchestrated by one of her producers after she declined his sexual propositions. Worth a look.