When chain gang prisoners attack their guards, some of the hardened criminals escape Brazil's infamous Anchieta Prison amidst all the pick-ax carnage. The government dispatches a machine-gun squad to round up the fugitives, who have fled by foot and boat and now have begun to turn on each other.
Maos Sangrentas translates to Bloody Hands in English, and that's just what this gruesome Brazilian melodrama delivers. The story begins when a gang of dangerous convicts escape from a penal colony. With the police in hot pursuit, the escapees cut a gory swath through the countryside. As his comrades are killed off one by one, the leader of the group descends into gibbering madness. In contrast to this, a subplot develops involving the least dangerous of the escapees, who murdered his wife in a peak of self-righteous rage and is now seriously in doubt about the wisdom of his deed. Principal scenes reworked in 1962 to make the film The Violent and the Damned (q.v.).
A psychopathic rapist is contained by two young farmers, one of whom is involved with the police and, while he protects a threatened young girl, finds the 'redemption'.
On the day of his wedding, young man from a family of immigrants faces some problems to get the money needed for the last arrangements. The family do what they can in order to honour the great event, selling personal belongings and buying enough supplies for a decent party.
A lady, owner of a large area of land where it is believed there are several oil wells, is almost fooled by the president of a pseudo petroleum company into giving up her property for nothing, but is saved by his son's noble intervention.
A precious necklace is stolen during a convention at Quitandinha Palace, a hotel in which a wives conference is deciding whether or not unfaithful husbands should receive the death penalty.
