Taxi driver gets in a jam when he receives a lot of money as inheritance from a distant family member when in fact, the money came from a bank robbery.

For a long time a couple exchanged love letters, he living in the Northeast and she in Rio de Janeiro. One day he goes to the wonderful city together with a colleague, but he soon faces a problem: since he has sent the girl a photo of someone else, he is afraid to approach and reveal who he really is. At the same time, the colleague has a falling out with a girl who defends rock 'n' roll tooth and nail.

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.).