A great critical and commercial success, it won best picture at the San Sebastián International Film Festival in 1975.

Ángel is an "alimañero", a hunter in charge of killing wolves and other animals of prey in order to protect deer in a hunting wild reserve.

To survive, he resorts to furtive deception of the local civil guards hunting the wild game and selling the meat and skins for profit.

With no money and still wearing the reformatory's uniform, she notices Ángel eating his lunch in the street and boldly seduces him taking him for a fool.

Milagros plan is to leave soon hiding out from the authorities until El Cuqui comes to look for her, but Ángel, in spite of his mother opposition, is determined that she stays with him.

Realizing that she did not escape with El Cuqui, Ángel searches their room finding a box with some of Milagros's nostalgic possessions that she would have never left behind.

While Lola Gaos was set from the start to play Martina, Borau considered Ángela Molina and Mariano Haro, for the starring roles.

When José Luis López Vázquez declined the role of the Governor, Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón persuaded Borau to play it.

[3] The word Furtivos has two meanings in Spanish: people hunting game illegally (poachers) and somebody who harbor secret thoughts.

"[6] The script was written by film director and screenwriter Manuel Gutiérrez Aragón and José Luis Borau.

[7] The idea behind the film was born out of the character of Angel, the poacher, which was based on a real man who lived and hunt illegally in Cabuérniga Cantabria.

Borau was impressed after seeing Gaos play the role of Saturnina, a cynical maid, in Luis Buñuel's film Tristana (1970).

[11] It was a standard practice in Spanish film of the time to post sync the actors recording their lines in the studio in post-production.

Ovidi Montllor, Ángel, had a thick Valencian accent, unsuitable for a character supposedly born and bred in northern Spain.

[14] Furtivos is also notable for the cinematography by Luis Cuadrado, whose chiaroscuro effects for the film were inspired by the paintings of El Greco and Jusepe de Ribera.

[10] The look and pacing of the film follows the styles of John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock, the hallowed directors admired by Borau.

It also offended animal rights advocates in Spain for the scene in which Martina clubs a trapped she wolf with a shovel.

[16][better source needed] Underneath its rural and realistic presentation; Furtivos is at the same time a tragedy and a fairy tale.

The petulant, narcissist, infantile behaviors of the governor towards Martina, his former wet nurse, suggest the senility of the dictator who was approaching death when the film was made.

His intrusiveness in the life of Martina and her son can be viewed as the attempts of the Francoist forces to repress and control the desires of a nation.

The film directly challenged Franco's censorship policies with its scenes of stark violence, explicit nudity, its depiction of amoral characters and its display of the degeneration of the existing political regime.

He refused to the censor's demands to cut some of the aspect of the character of the governor, scenes at the girl's reformatory, and Milagros woodlands striptease.

Borau battles with the censors paved the way for many other Spanish film directors to deal with controversial themes without fear of censorship.

The realization of the incestuous relationship between Angel and his mother, especially when she is finally dragged and torn out of their bed to make room for Milagros, is considered one of the most startling scenes in Spanish Cinema.

Also disturbing is the scene when Angel shoots Martina without remorse just as he had killed a beautiful wild stag, the governor's coveted but elusive prize, during one of his hunting excursions.