These two good Argentinian noirs from director Carlos Hugo Christensen, based on Cornell Woolrich tales (hard to go wrong there), were paradoxically made during the extremely repressive Peronist era. Well, maybe not so paradoxically when you realize that Hollywood noir flourished in the same period, in the shadow of the equallly authoritarian HUAC era. Unlike Noir Alley host Eddie Muller, I prefer the first installment with its crisp, perfectly paced story of an incestuous sibling relationship that leads a good man to do evil. That second phonecall is like the judgement of God upon the obsessed brother who has erroneously murdered the man he thought was blackmailing his sister. The second episode, by contrast, deals with a bad man who has, as his saintly mother puts it, finally "found the right path." And when you deal with saintly moms and redemption you run the risk of sentimentality which is never a good look for noir and which the first film avoids and the second does not, in my opinion. Give it an overall B plus and I look forward to seeing this very talented director's "If I Die Before I Wake" which is in the Noir Alley on deck circle.
