Available on Dual-Format Blu-Ray/ DVD now.

There is a revolution in the air: 40 diamond prospectors against twenty government soldiers who are taking over with a view to nationalise the mine the men have worked hard to forge, but to no avail. Georges Marchal is Chark, the pale rider new in town seeking a bed. Is he the miners’ saviour? He wakes to find sultry red-dressed Djin (Simone Signoret) offering him a good time for hard cash. The ineffectual pastor is called Father Lizzardi (Michel Piccoli). This is a town where everyone is out for what they can get and are prepared to risk losing everything. Chark is finally arrested and his secret stash (strapped to his chest) is confiscated.

A motley crew of the priest, the outsider, the prostitute, an old guy and his mute daughter make a break and are pursued downriver by the militia. Shot in Mexico, the film captures well the steaming heat and equally rank corruption where everyone is desperate to stay and strike it rich and leave for their beloved France. It’s a film of two halves; one set in the town the other in the jungle.

Buñuel does a nice line in subversion, even if his fight scenes and symbolism are a tad ham-fisted. Simone Signoret is the riveting, world-weary tart without a heart and is the still centre of the band who hack their way through the rainforest. There are lots of surprises and surreal moments as when the pastor tears a page out of the Bible to help light the campfire and a dead snake covered in ants is an echo of Buñuel’s classic surrealist Chien Andalou (1929).

Then, when all seems lost, the cast is deliriously delivered by a surreal cargo-cult finale.