La noche avanza

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.

Pedro Armendariz shines in his portrayal of an arrogant pelota champion ; his philosophy is almost Nietszche 's will to power , where the weak has no room ; his motto is "you will be better off with one fifth of a powerful man than with the whole of a mediocre one "and he takes a hard line with the "inferiors" ;a womanizer ,he treats his wife and lovers like sexual objects or as cash cows (the scene when he forces the aging woman to look at herself in the mirror is revealing )

The script in the second part is perhaps not as firm as in the first one, but it involves elements of pure film noir (a la "the harder they fall" or "the set up" )and melodrama (the girl he got pregnant and the awful act he puts on her ) ;and the very last sequence is one of the best I know about human vanity ;a Bunuelesque scene which recalls "los olvidados" .

In "La noche avanza" there are no good or decent characters. There are only anti-heroes and self-assumed victims who do not hesitate a second to become perpetrators to take revenge on their own perpetrators: jealous, liars or possessive women, dangerously self-destructive; And men whose maximum value is opportunism. There is no trait of kindness here, only facets of selfishness. Considering the improbability of this happening (not only in Mexican cinema of that time but in cinema in general), La noche avanza has a spectacular and quirky freshness.

In addition, the frenzy accelerates as the night advances. Quite a few scenes from the second half of this film could be considered even pre- tarantinescan. So far the best movie I've found of the so-called Mexican Noir and the second best of the director Roberto Gavaldón (after Macario, 1960).