Odio mortale

Roberto Gavaldón is a superlative practitioner of 'noir' and here he and his writers have not only dispensed with the customary femme fatale but have instead depicted its three female leads as victims of a particularly loathsome homme fatale played with relish by Pedro Armendáriz as a bullying, pathological narcissist.

Senor Armendáriz, one of the most iconic artistes from Mexico's Golden Age, is not a traditional leading man and therefore does not feel the need to protect an 'image' which gives him the liberty to play his character's nastiness to the hilt whilst Gavaldón allows him little sympathy.

The archetypal 'noir' ambience is provided by cinematographer Jack Draper and Production Designer Edward Fitzgerald, best known for his work with Bunuel and there is the usual collection of low lifes headed by a well-groomed José Mariá Linares-Rivas.

Mexican cinema, unlike that of Hollywood, did not have to deal with the unwelcome attentions of the Production Code but it did, of course, have the Catholic Church and following a wonderfully tense and eventful third act in which it looks as if the Devil is looking after his own, both the viewer and not least the villain are in for a big surprise. Not for nothing was Gavaldón known as the Master of Melodrama.