- Two branches of the same family fight for the love of a handsome Spanish poacher, and to retrieve the location of a treasure hidden by an ancestor during WWII, which secret is guarded by Marthe, their spinster aunt.
- Five girls spend their holidays in an old mansion in the middle of a farm in southern France, near Soledor. The lady of the house has a secret that the five wild girls will try to discover. They assume it is a hidden treasure somewhere, but it is only a way to hide a dramatic fact that concerns one of the girls.—Artemis-9
- [Based on the US video version of the movie. Characters are given with French/English names when first introduced; then, the English names are used, as currently the French language version is not available to the public.]
Colomba/Isabel (Maria Tamar), in gray shirt, jeans and leather boots, and an ammunition belt around her waist, is hunting in the raven mountain range of Soledor, in the Hérault, France.
Her younger sister Gladys/Jenny (Madeleine Constant), a short hair blonde in beach shorts, white shirt and open sandals, is petting nearby with the gypsy poacher Manuel/Blackie (Marc Bonseignour). Isabel shoots at a tree branch, right on the mark, and Jenny locates her and goes to meet her. Isabel seems to disapprove that Jenny is hunting for men.
With Isabel is her blonde and silent close friend Sylvaine/Sylvia (Marie-France Mignal), in a white dress, either unease in the presence of Jenny, or too timid to take part in the conversation.
At the family farmhouse in decay, Marthe/Martha (Colette Régis), an old and alcoholic spinster, is hiding a bottle of red wine in the dog house - just when the three young women were coming back, and Isabel notices the maneuver. She orders Jenny to hold the dog back, and shoots the bottle inside the dog house. When they go in, Martha is setting the table in the patio, under the sunshine, but she is not happy with the presence of her uninvited guests.
Isabel comments to Sylvia that she would like to make the old woman talk, and asks Jenny if she's found anything. Jenny, who's listening to light music in a battery-operated telephony, says, "Nothing in a hundred yards!" (92 meters) Then she adds,"I got tired!... It was pretty rough going..." Isabel asks Martha about the "old road", if her father ever told about it. Aunt Martha's answer is not helpful, either. Isabel turns back to a map she's spread on the table. She complains she can't think with the music distracting her, and tells Jenny to look over the cliff the next day. Sylvia is afraid of the danger the cliff represents, but Jenny says that she's not afraid of heights, "I get all excited!"
Next morning, with the radio by her side, Jenny is sunbathing topless at the edge of the cliff. She's surprised by the arrival of a jeep, and puts on her bikini - the bra and the swimming trunks over her slip - and goes down to meet the newcomers.
Gilles/George (Michel Montfort) , the topographical engineer supervising the construction of a river canal, offers two girls to take them to the farm, but they refuse. He leaves, and Jenny runs to the farm to give advance warning of the new arrivals.
The two young women used to play in that region five years before they left: Françoise/Viola (Nicole Mérouze) is a blonde who keeps her short hair in place with a headband, and her sister Agnès/Agnes (Denyse Roland), a blonde with long hair. Though this visit is also unexpected, Martha receives well her "dear children" - actually daughters of her late sister Mary. Martha had told them by letter that her other nieces "had stolen all the money she had", and they're not happy to see Isabel and Jenny arrive at a quick step, with Sylvia by their side. The dialogue between Isabel and Viola is harsh, and it's obvious that neither pair of sisters was there for holidays, but with a purpose. Martha interrupts them, "My darling nieces! No one of you'll ever touch the treasure! That treasure is accursed! [To Viola, she adds,] It was your mother's wish, and I respect it!"
Viola tells her, "I understand," and leads Agnes to the detached house next to the main house, not before giving Sylvia a funny look, "You're Sylvia, aren't you?" This gets her no answer, but leaves Isabel - who's sweet on the timid art student from Paris - in rage. Turning to Martha, Isabel reproves that she would not keep her mouth shut about the treasure. Sylvia stays with Martha, showing compassion, but Martha does not reply to her.
Isabel mounts with Jenny to her cousins' bedroom, and asks Viola out for a conversation - while still carrying the hunting shotgun, and before Viola finishes unpacking. Viola follows her, but without her noticing, she hides a large flick-blade under her white sweater. In the enclosed yard, Martha is curious about the two cousins leaving, but now it's Sylvia who doesn't answer her. Jenny stood alone with Agnes, and is trying some dresses in front of the wardrobe's mirror.
Isabel shoots at a tree branch to impress Viola, before arguing with her about the hidden treasure. Viola accuses her and Jenny of squandering Martha's money, instead of thanking them for having raised them after their mother's death. Isabel shoots her gun in the air, but then recharges the gun - pointing it to Viola, who pulls open her flick-blade. Viola throws the knife's blade right between Isabel's boots, and teases her, "You'd like to know if I believe that treasure exists, don't you?" She recuperates her knife, and adds, "Well, I'll tell you. Like you, I read those papers and letters that Martha sent to my mother." [Mary, sister of Martha and John.] "You hadn't heard about it before?" interrupts Isabel. "Sure, but no one believed that story about the dropped gold by parachute, it was a war story!" "So, it was the letters that decided you to come," asks Isabel. "The letters, and you! If you didn't knew about it, you'd not have been here for months." "Go on... Do you intend to find it by yourself?" "No, with my sister." When Viola is retrieving her knife, Isabel goes after her close, and shouts, "My father's money belongs to me!" Viola takes, the open flick-blade in hand. "No! Your father's money, as you call it, that they dropped by parachute, was really stolen money. And now, it's lost money. The finders, the keepers... And the money is cursed, don't forget what Martha says." The argument goes on, Isabel denying Viola's any rights to the money. "I'm making you a proposition," and Isabel shoots her gun right between Viola's feet. "And this is my answer!" Viola replies, throwing the knife into a tree trunk inches away from Isabel's head.
At the cousins' bedroom, Agnes suggests to Jenny that they would do better searching for the treasure together, and asks her who Sylvia is. Jenny says that Isabel never wanted to have a man after she'd lost her child, and Sylvia, an art school student, was her only company in Paris, who she considered like a sister. Jenny has put a robe on, and asks Agnes out, to show her her sports convertible, that she uses to drive in the evenings to the beach. "Alone?" asks Agnes. "Never alone!..." answers Jenny giggling. Then she tells her that Blackie, the gypsy, is her man, and suggests she may help Agnes find a boyfriend, too. "I'm not in hunger... But that guy who drove us here today... that'd be different." Jenny inform her cousin that George is after Sylvia, and that she's seen them together several times. "Sylvia?! I'd never guess it." "They just hold hands," says Jenny, and both young women start laughing out loud. Jenny drives fast, and makes a dangerous stop just at the cliff's edge. While enjoying the view, the two cousins talk about the parachuted gold. Jenny says that when the treasure had been buried, only a few young men in the village knew about it, and all of them had been killed. Agnes comments that as the gold had been parachuted on the 3rd, and Jenny's father had been arrested on the 6th, he had less 3 days to hide it. Jenny agrees: "It must be between here and the valley, about 9 miles..." (15 km)
At home, Isabel is talking with her sister, and studying the map on which she has marked the probable location of the hidden gold. "With the letters Martha wrote to aunt Mary," Isabel says, "they'll have figured that, too, and with what Martha has told them..." Sylvia sits by, in silence, and Jenny dances to the radio music, not paying attention. Matha is knitting at the end of the room, pretending not to be listening. The dog barking outside alerts the women to something. Isabel goes out to calm Luke, the dog, and sees Agnes' prominent breasts pushing forward under her sweater from behind a door jamb outside. Swiftly, Isabel picks up the shotgun inside, and comes out again, to shoot a warning shot at Agnes, as she ran away to the safety of her room in the detached house.
"You see?! She'll murder is one day!" says Agnes to Viola, who kept doing her fingernails on the bed, very calm. "Don't worry, she's only bluffing."
Isabel hangs her shotgun by the door, and sits again at table. "Well, we can't go on with the digging now, they'll be watching us every minute." Jenny retorts, "Say... Those letters you mentioned... Why don't we steal them?" Isabel cautions Jenny, "Viola knows how to use her knife. She gave me a demonstration this afternoon." A klaxon downstairs. Sylvia stands up and picks a light sweater, making for the door. "Where are you going?" asks Isabel. "I need some fresh air," Sylvia answers. "good night."
Isabel is sour. From the other house, with the lights out, the two cousins are spying on Sylvia's departure in the engineer's jeep. Then, already in their twin beds, Agnes tells Viola that she's seen that Isabel has a map. But the conversation turns to Sylvia and George, sex and love; then Agnes finds a rag doll in a chest of drawers. "It's Bella!... Remember her? How I loved to play with her." "Don't come at me crying for your childhood. We didn't come here to cry about the past..." "What's wrong with the past? To you, only the present counts!" "And the future. We came here with a purpose, remember? Don't you know?!" The dog barks again. Agnes in her see-through baby-doll spies from the window. "Jenny! She's taking her car. She is not with anyone." "Follow her!" decides Viola, jumping out of bed in her pajamas. She hands a long leather coat to Agnes. "What for?" "Sylvia and George... and the Engineer. Jenny and Blackie... he was born here, he knows all region by heart..."
Jenny comes at a run through the woods, to embrace and kiss with Blackie near the cliff. She complains that she can't stand her cousins spying on her at home. He doesn't know who the cousins are, but she tells him that they were the two girls that used to play with them in the woods. That brings him a memory, and makes both laugh... He picks her in his arms, and menaces to through her out of the cliff - but instead they have sex. Agnes managed to catch them kissing wildly and rolling together on the grass, and laying on her back, she opens her leather coat, and masturbates in her slip.
Meanwhile, Sylvia and George are exchanging words of love side by side, then he attempts to give her a light kiss, and she says it's time to get back home. So he drives her back in the jeep. Isabel is smoking, waiting nervously in her conservative sleeping shirt, and when Sylvia arrives, she stares at her. Sylvia stares her back in silence, and Isabel slaps her. Sylvia hides her face on the bed pillow, sobbing.
Next morning, Agnes wakes up early, and runs from her house to Isabel's room, to find her and Sylvia still asleep. Then she goes to Jenny's room, and wakes her up, demanding, "Jenny! Where is she?" "Who?" "Stop playing games and answer me." "How should I know?" "I hope for your sake that nothing happened to her." Jenny simply turns round, to get back to sleep. Meanwhile, Blackie is already hunting, and setting traps for rabbits. He sees Agnes asleep, her nude legs protruding from the leather coat. He starts chatting with her, but they are interrupted by the arrival of Viola. They start talking about the past, and Blackie comments that he has a grudge with the engineer, because he did not allow him to stay in the land where he used to live. "One day I'll get him when he is not looking..." Then, Viola asks him about the parachute story. Blackie was 10-year-old then, and has no valuable information for her.
Jenny visits George at the public works site and shows her appreciation for the big machines at work. He tells her their names: the "big machine" is a bulldozer, and the "big monster over there" is a trench-digger.
Isabel, all made up in a white dress and high heels, pays a visit to George at the site too; after an hesitation when she sees he is talking with the blonde, she asks about his work, and he tells her it will be finished by October, "The whole region will be under water." She hides her worry by turning her head, then puts on a smile and compliments him for "a real job for a real man," and she asks him for a detailed map of the region, which he promptly offers to her. Jenny is not pleased by the way George looks and smiles back at Isabel... Then they leave, Isabel first, then Jenny, the second after being invited to accompany George to the evening's fiesta in the village.
At home, Agnes, wearing trunks and a white shirt with the flaps tied in front, is prodding Martha gently, while she takes care of a bunch of flowers. Martha is not answering most of the questions, but then she says she had to come to take care of John - Agnes' uncle. "It was then that your mother... oh... let's forget about the past!" To change the conversation, Agnes tells Martha that "Viola is going to the village. is there something special she may bring you from the store? A bottle of whiskey for example, hum?" Martha's eyes smile for the first time, but then she turns her attention to the flowers again: "Isabel doesn't want me to drink..." Agnes starts speaking against Isabel, and Martha interrupts her. "They came back to look for me!" Agnes replies that the only reason they came was to look for the gold.
Viola is coming from the village with the groceries - and a bottle of whiskey - but she stays behind to stop the engineer who is driving from the site. She chats him up, confessing that she'd waited for him on hearing the motor of his jeep. He lights a cigarette, and offers her a lift, which she declines. "I forgot that you like to walk," he comments. She talks about the the local wilderness. "It's beautiful," he comments. "It's exciting," she adds, "But alone, you can't appreciate the beauties of nature." George takes the bottle out of her plastic net bag, asking, "Is this to console you for your loneliness?" She laughs, "Hum... Any objections?" "None at all." "Unless you can suggest any other consolation." "How about coming to the gypsy Fiesta? There will be lots of young men there. Are you going?" "Naturally. The whole village will be there..." As he is about to re-start the motor, she says, "By the way. I'd like to ask you... Could you possibly get me a detailed map of the area?" "For you, too?" "Too?!" Her surprise is bigger than his. "Why not, I already provided one for your cousin Isabel." He departs slowly, as the< road is taken by a flock of sheep. Viola is speechless.
Jenny and Sylvia in dresses say good-bye to Martha, knitting by the fireplace, and Isabel at table with the new map, in the main room. Isabel comments, "You're dressed like a couple of streetwalkers." "Keep the compliments to yourself," says Jenny, as Sylvia turns her face away. After a crisp exchange, Jenny says, "It won't help you finding that treasure keeping looking at that map." Isabel reproves them for thinking of nothing but sex, and Jenny gently takes Sylvia to the door. Isabel goes after them, and calls for her. Sylvia stops at the end of the staircase. "You're following her... like a sheep!" "I see..." Isabel makes several attempts to dissuade Sylvia to mix herself "with those gypsies", and she ends by replying, "Sometimes I've wished to be one of them." In anguish, Isabel is about to slap the girl, but she is determined to go, and her stare stops Isabel's left hand in the air.
At a dilapidated palace or church, about two dozen people are gathered to watch a gypsy girl is dancing Flamenco style, with the rhythm set by a guitarist and a man clapping hands.
Viola sees that Blackie is looking intensely at Sylvia, and addresses him, "She's gone out with the Engineer..." George arrives then, and goes to sit by Sylvia. When George puts his hand on Sylvia's shoulder, Blackie leaves the room. Jenny goes after Blackie. When the dance ends, George and Sylvia also leave.
Jenny and Blackie are petting on the grass, but he is aloof. "What's the matter?" "I'm thinking. You think that with money, you can have anything you want." "Most of..." "But some things can't be bought." "Perhaps..." "What's it exactly? That thing of treasure of yours..." "Not you, too!..." Jenny says, annoyed at the prospect her evening is ruined.
Under the moonlight, George attempts to kiss Sylvia again, but again she stops him, though she says she loves him.
Viola is teasing Blackie again, who's returned to the fiesta. He's drinking wine from a water-skin that he took from another spectator. Then, he takes her by the hand, and starts a round dance around the small stage where the dancer was, joined by several spectators.
Meanwhile, Sylvia is trying to persuade George that Isabel is not bad. "She was not married, and had a baby here. She let Martha take care of him, and she went back to Paris. One day, the baby disappeared, they searched all over, but the baby was never found."
Meanwhile, Blackie keeps drinking from the water-skin, and dancing on the stage with the long haired gypsy girl. When the dance finishes, he descends, and tries to embrace Sylvia, who refuses him, "You're drunk!" George pulls him back by the arm, and Jenny interposes herself between the two men. "Stop it, will you?" "You the Engineer, I'll catch you one of these days..." He spits at George's feet, and leaves, accompanied by Jenny.
At home, Martha reproaches Isabel's attitude, and she tells her to shut up. Martha is fed up with silence, now, and tries to convince Isabel that she's trying to get the treasure instead of something she knows she can't have, and that she's ruining her life for it. Martha says that Sylvia has the right to live her life. Isabel reproaches her cousins for letting Martha drink, and becoming whores, and reproaches Martha for wishing to be poor, and confined to that place. "Isabel... it wasn't my fault! You know how careful I always was." "It was my fault. I shouldn't have let him with a drunkard." "I wasn't then. I started drinking because of what happened." Isabel shouts, "Shut up, now! I don't want to hear about it! I don't want to hear about it!... I'll find the gold. I'll find the gold and get out of here for good." Martha stands up, and caresses Isabel's shoulders, "My child! My child, my Isabel!..." Isabel, sobering up: "Leave me alone. I've got work to do." Martha sits in her chair, sobbing in silence, like Isabel does.
Next morning, Sylvia asks Martha where Isabel is. "She left early, slamming the door." Viola is applying lipstick with a small round hand-mirror at the window, and listening to the conversation in the yard. "And the others?" "I don't know," says Martha, waving her hand and going into the house. Sylvia goes out into the wood looking for her cousins, wearing her trademark pleated skirt and a shirt with the flaps knotted in front, revealing her belly. Blackie sees her, and follows her. Sylvia sees Blackie looking at her from the top of a low cliff, and is suddenly afraid. She runs away, only to be cornered against a rocky wall, and attacked by him. She fights back to no avail, he rips her shirt, and forcibly kisses her.
At the farm, Viola sits with Martha, and drinks with her from the Haig's bottle she brought from the shop.
Agnes, wearing black trousers and white shirt, found her way to Blackie's stone hamlet, and waits for him. When he arrives, she asks him about a wild plant with thorns that grows over the hamlet. He says they call it "crown of Christ". "Where does it grow?" "I don't know, over there, in the grottoes..." "Exactly where?" "Why all the questions?" "Tell me!" "In the ravine, there..." Blackie points with his jaw. "They don't grow any place else." "Could you take me there?" "Yeah, sure... But what for?" "Wait for me - I'll get Viola!" and Agnes departs at a run.
Jenny, in a white skirt with a belt and white knotted shirt showing her stomach, has found Isabel, who's hunting again with her shotgun. They see Agnes running on the top a cliff, coming from Blackie's place, and they wonder why.
Isabel surprises Blackie working by his hamlet with a pick-ax. "Blackie!" he turns his head, and sees Isabel pointing the shotgun at him. "What was Agnes doing around here?" he starts walking, and she shoots at the ground between his feet. "She wanted to know where the treasure was." "Did you tell her?" "Yes, I told her, so what?" "Where is it?" "You too?... How come you're all so anxious to know? I can show you some other things..." She shoots again, over his shoulder. Blackie says again, "It's over there, in the ravine," and as Isabel looks away from him, he quickly grabs his shotgun and jumps over a dilapidated wall of loose stones. Isabel takes cover, too, and they exchange shots, as Jenny moves away from Isabel. In between shots, Blackie taunts Isabel, saying that her whole family is crazy, that Viola told him about the treasure, and that he had raped "your queer Sylvia". That last remark makes Isabel take better aim, and the shot is so close to Blackie's head that splinters of rock hurt him near the left eye. She stops shooting, Jenny calls her a bitch, and runs to Blackie, to take care of him.
Isabel orders Jenny to tie him up with a piece of cord he uses for traps, which she does, but when Isabel has walked away, Jenny places Blackie's flick-blade close to his head on the ground.
At home, Martha continues to speak with Viola. Now her voice dragging for having drunk too much, she tells her secret, "Isabel came to have a child here, went back to Paris, and I raised him here. He was one year old when it happened... When I came back home, he wasn't there... The police came and searched all over, but they never... never found any traces of him. Isabel never had anything to do with it. It was my fault... I don't feel well." Viola helps the woman stand, and takes her up to bed. Martha is groggy, but she picks up the bottle, to take with her.
Sylvia returns and goes up - seeing from the door that Martha is asleep on her chair, and Viola is searching the main room's cupboard. Hearing steps, she hides, and sees Agnes running up to Viola's room. Then, Agnes comes down again, and runs up to the main house - where she surprises Viola, who's finally found Isabel's map. Agnes reveals what she learned from Blackie, that the plant they're searching is at the ravine.
The two sisters come down to the yard just in time to see Sylvia running away - after she took the letters and the switchblade that Viola had left on the table. Viola hands the map to Agnes, telling her to prepare their suitcases, and then to meet with her at the ravine. Then, Viola arms herself with a long twig, and runs after Sylvia, wearing her light white cotton dress with a white belt.
Knowing the surroundings better than the girl from Paris, Viola blocks her path, with the long twig in her hand, demanding, "Give my letters back, or I'll kill you!" Sylvia confronts her in silence, and pulls open the flick-blade. Viola smiles mockingly, and attacks, beating the flick-blade out of the girl's hand, leaving a long blood graze on it. Viola rushes the girl and beats her shoulders as she kneels on the rough ground, but Sylvia grabs at Viola's knees and pulls her close, making her trip and fell on her back. Sylvia attacks Viola, and they roll around, pulling hair, Sylvia manages to bite Viola's lower leg, but she is soon losing to Viola's strength. Sylvia disengages and runs away, crying out for help, and eventually she's heard by George who was driving the jeep on the country road nearby. Viola catches up with Sylvia, who fell before reaching the road, gets astride her and is about to strangle her, when George comes in a hurry, protecting Sylvia. Viola still demands the map back, but George' stare at her forces her to step back, and go away without it.
George takes the girl in his arms, she's sobbing, and tells him, "I'm so ashamed... Manuel..." - a reference to having been raped by the poacher.
Isabel and Jenny return home and finds Martha asleep, and find that the map is gone. She re-arms herself with more bullets, and is about to leave when George arrives with Sylvia. George tells Jenny, "You take care of Sylvia, I've got something to settle." Sylvia pleads with him not to go, "He'll kill you!..." "Wait!" Isabel says, "I'll hand him to you." But George leaves first, to confront Blackie. He drives his jeep, then arms himself with a revolver, and goes on foot up hill.
Meanwhile, Blackie manages to cut off his bonds with the knife Jenny left by him. He puts new ammunition in his shotgun, and takes the pick-ax and a shovel with him.
Sylvia tells Martha that the girls went to the ravine, and Martha - suddenly fresh - arms herself with a shotgun, and goes out to the ravine as well, followed by the young woman.
The two men shoot at each other from afar, then George outsmarts Blackie, and goes around some boulders, and jumps on him, disarming him. They fight hand to hand, blooding each other's faces with their naked fists. The two sisters and the two cousins have got close, but can't, or won't interfere. When Blackie pulls his flick-blade, Martha shoots at Blackie from a hill top. Sylvia is by her side, a step behind, in fear.
Martha with shouts at the group below, "You're all crazy, and there never was a treasure. Do you know what you're going to find there, Isabel? Your child's dead body. I buried it here... Your son didn't disappear. One night by accident, he drove a knife into his chest. I was afraid to tell you. I was just able to bury it here. I know what you read in that letter, but there never was a war treasure, I made it all up!" You asked me questions, what was I up to say? So I told you there was a treasure. Your father was arrested two days before the parachute fell here, but I was the only one who knew that. So I told you the place was cursed. [Isabel starts moving] Nobody moves! Please forgive me, forgive me, Isabel. It wasn't my fault, but you wouldn't listen to me [sobbing], but you wouldn't listen to me [walks back from the cliff], but you wouldn't listen to me!..." After this admission, Martha throws herself off the cliff, with a muffled cry. [off camera]
"Martha!" Isabel cries out. "Sylvia!" shouts George, who climbs quickly to the hill where the girl is, stunned by the events. She smiles at him, caresses his face, and he takes her hand, walking away hand-in-hand. Agnes and Viola walk away through another path. Blackie looks at Isabel, tries to address her twice, doesn't find courage, and goes away alone in the opposite direction. Isabel stands alone [Jenny is then, but not in shot], crying in silence, still with the shotgun in hand, looking at the dry stems of a plant with no leaves, and no flowers.
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