Nocturno 29 começa onde No compteu amb els dits terminou: com uma tela preta e a materialidade da projeção. Ele aprofunda a futura estrutura Eisensteinesca dos filmes de Portabella que não avançam em tempo linear, mas sim por uma sucessão de cenas autônomas.
Pere Portabella’s first work as a director starts with the following phrase: “defeated…but not conquered”. This may or should be taken as an allusion to the technical K.O. taken by Portabella from Franco’s regime during the sixties as regards his work as a producer. Through the extremely raging playthings of the words of Catalan poet Joan Brossa, Portabella attempts to dismantle the forms of advertising discourse of that time.
A former convict, named Raul Vela, and a cabaret singer, called Clara, are a couple who tries to lead a normal life. He has found an employment and she wants to leave the cabaret. One day an old chief, who wants to disappear, proposes him to justify his supposed death in a supposed accident. In exchange, Raúl will receive one hundred thousand pesetas as gratification. Raul refuses to engage in the deception. Shortly after, he reads in a newspaper about the death of Cervera, which makes the police relate him to the case.
Blanquita, a very superstitious Cuban young woman, visits a fortune teller on the eve of her wedding to Roberto. She predicts that her first husband is destined to die, as well as would not make her happy. Believing this and according to her uncle, Blanquita starts looking for a man about to die, with the intention to marry him, then become widower and take Roberto as her second husband, thus freeing him from the curse.
No pequeno porto espanhol de nome Esperanza vive a bela Pandora (Ava Gardner), figura enigmática desejada por todos os homens. Um dia chega ao local o Capitão Hendrick van der Zee (James Mason), sozinho em seu iate. Pandora, que desconhecia o amor, não consegue esconder a atração que sente pelo forasteiro. O segredo é que Hendrick é na verdade o Holandês Voador, marinheiro amaldiçoado por Deus que só encontrará a liberdade no dia do juízo final. Ou quando uma mulher estiver disposta a morrer por ele.
