Mexico’s cycle of cabaretera films featured desperate women performing for men (on stage and/or in bed), often running from trauma and becoming trapped in the crossfire of pachucos, or small-time gangsters who symbolized machismo and rebellion. Many of these films were minor, formulaic productions designed more around music than story, but some, like Emilio Fernández’s Victimas del pecado (US: Victims of Sin), combined sleazy, underworld melodrama with spectacular entertainment a la Warner Brothers of the late 1930’s. The infinitely energetic Ninón Sevilla plays nightclub dancer Violeta, who rescues a co-worker’s abandoned baby from a trash can and decides to raise it herself, which creates violent tension between the owners of two competing nightclubs: Rodolfo (Rodolfo Acosta), Violeta’s employer and the baby’s father, and Santiago (Tito Junco), who takes a liking to Violeta and protects her. One or both of these guys will end up dead. The film combines physical brutality (Violeta smacks the baby’s disconsolate mother a whopping six times across the face at full strength; Rodolfo beats up Violeta to the point of disfigurement) with visual beauty (in a sequence when the silhouette of Violeta wanders with her baby, a stunning panoramic backdrop paints the industrial landscape with billows of smoke and naked moonlight to appear almost cosmic). The entire film takes place at night, the cobblestones outside the club constantly glimmering in either neon or lamplight, and Figueroa’s camera patiently follows characters through the doors of the club to build anticipation for the most dramatic moments. The musical numbers, of course, are extremely satisfying, two highlights being the jitterbug number and a dreamy ballad sung by Pedro Vargas.