A scrolling title at the beginning of this Cuban drama delivers a quick primer on Alberto Yarini Ponce de Leon, a legendary pimp who wrested control of the Havana prostitution market from French colonists in 1910. Unfortunately, the movie centers not on this intriguing figure but on a modern-day college professor who’s writing a book about Yarini and decides to immerse herself in the real world of prostitution by interviewing a hardened pimp and his hookers. The focus soon shifts to a mouth-watering young gigolo in the pimp’s employ, and the story devolves into a mundane bodice ripper as he lays his sweet, fierce love on not only the professor but a middle-aged real estate agent and, fatefully, the pimp’s luscious girlfriend. Ernesto Daranas Beranno directed. 94 min.
