José Manuel Fregoso

El Llanto de los Pobres

Mateo Melgarejo is a notary public and scribe for the illiterate people of Santo Domingo, a neighborhood north of Mexico City's Zócalo. A squatter friend asks for his help in negotiating with the land census bureau to regularize a land title. After a great deal of frustration with the government bureaucracy, he writes a letter to the cabinet minister, earning an audience with him. The minister hires Melgarejo to reform the bureau, and the appointee proceeds to lecture the officials on their duties in a democratic society. At the end, he gives up the post, returning to Santo Domingo to help its poor residents.

A group of young drug dealers commit crimes in a sleazy strip club.

Two young waitresses, Laura and Eva, become romantically involved with a movie distributor, Adrian, and his friend Luis.

Bellas de noche continues. The ex-fichera who bought the cabaret continues to work with several of her former companions, the waiter Fabian, the pugilist Bronco who returns to boxing, Carmen, his wife, who returns to booking, the drunk “La Corcholata”, in love with an old man, and a French woman and the pimp “El Vaselinas”, whose favors are disputed by all the women, but who loses his virility and fights to regain it.