THE BLACK PALACE OF LECUMBERRI was no joke. As the cell door closed behind him, a wave of dread struck Budd Boetticher. Stench rose from a hole in the ground, and the only window, twenty feet above, yielded little light.
The year was 1961. The Black Palace was the colloquial name for Mexico City’s most notorious prison—a place where people went to disappear. In six decades, only one person had escaped alive. Boetticher was in Mexico to film a documentary about the bullfighter Carlos Arruza when he was locked up for unpaid debts.
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