No abras nunca esa puerta

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.

(1952) Never Open That Door./ No abras nunca esa puerta.

(In Spanish with English subtitles) THRILLER

Three movies adapted from the stories by Cornell Woolrich under the pseudom name William Irish divided into two different movies. "Never Open That Door" contains two of those stories. The first story is "Somebody on the Phone"/ "Alguien al teléfono" that has adult brother, Raúl Valdez (Ángel Magaña) in charge of the family business. He is with his sister, Luisa Valdez at a celebration/ party and we then see his sister attempting to hock her ring, we later find out belonged to their mother. However, by the time she gets home the brother soon then shows up and as soon as he hears the phone, he answers it but with no answer. Later, the phone rings again but this time she waits until it five times before it stops, and then rings once more before she answers it. The brother then asks her who was on the phone, she convinces him it was nobody before he goes to the bank to withdraw money to pay off the workers. And to his surprise, there is no more money into the family account, and has more than overdrawn it. Motivating him to rush back home and confront his sister about it,, it was soon revealed she has a gambling addiction. One thing leads to another.

I'd give this 2.5 out of four as although this was one of the first films about gambling addiction, it is just a common theme whereas I was a little curious despite their privileged lives, how come being as attractive as the brother and sister are, how come they are still single.

The second movie "Hummingbird Comes Home"/ "El pájaro cantor vuelve al hogar" is a little more involving that opens with a bank robbery and one of the three happened to be shot while attempting to escape on their getaway car. Meanwhile, we are then introduced to a mother, Rosa (Ilde Pirovano) who happens to be blind living with her niece, Maria (Norma Giménez). And during her wondering around the household, she often gripes how her son is going to show up one of these days on her doorstep and make her proud. And then some time later we hear a knock on the door, with the niece opening the door, two men barge through the door carrying with them the injured third person, making viewers to realize that they are the same people who had just held up a bank. And that the son, Daniel (Roberto Escalada) may also be the ringleader. The movie ends with a small twist.

This one is a little more resonating with the twist at the end makes viewers asking questions later. I'd give this a slight edge over the first movie even though more could have done with it. 3 out of 4.

Eddie Muller, noir novelist (The Distance; Shadow Boxer) and President of the Film Noir Foundation, brought this film to my attention in an interview he gave to Despina Veneti which was republished in Noir City Volume 6, Number 2. He called the film 'a terrific adaptation of two Cornell Woolrich stories'. It's certainly a surprise to see that this kind of noir fare was being made in Argentina in 1952. This film never had a release in the UK, and is not available on DVD here. But it can be seen on YouTube, albeit in Argentinian Spanish without subtitles,(fortunately, I'm bilingual), with terrible sound, and not the best picture. The visuals alone, however, are worth it. This is pure noir cinematography. The second story, in fact, has a blind protagonist who can distinguish night from day because "it's a different kind of shadow". The actors resemble Hollywood players of the era (one of the baddies must have been Argentina's answer to George Raft); the women are beautiful, the men are desperate, and the shadows are waiting...Well-written, well-acted, well-shot, well-paced, well...watch it!

In this two-story movie derived from a couple of Cornell Woolrich stories, director Carlos Hugo Christiansen offers the audience tales of suspense. In "Somebody on the Phone", Ángel Magaña is in charge while his parents are taking a holiday abroad. His sister, Renée Dumas, has been hanging out at unsavory joints with strange men. He discovers she has drawn out all the money in the bank account and is receiving phone calls from an unknown man who signals his calls by hanging up the phone after it rings five times and then calls back. In "Hummingbird Comes Home", blind Ilde Pirovano has her son return after a long absence. He is now a thief who plans to rob the town's bank.

These being Cornell Woolrich stories, they're mordant and quirky. The lighting by Berlin-born cinematographer Pablo Taberno is gloomy and well into the noir territory, with elaborate set designs by Manuel Villar.

Originally this was planned as a three-part movie. However, the production company didn't want to release anything longer than 85 minutes. So the third story was split off into a separate movie called If I Should Die Before Wake.

This remarkable film noir from Argentina is directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen, admired by Eddie Muller himself. Based on William Irish, the direction is constantly inventive and should be studied in cinema universities, some faces shots made me think of Dreyer. Each movement by the characters, each camera position or movement serve chirurgically the story, especially with the blind character (William Irish' books were all so visual and inspired many masterpieces, Phantom Lady, Rear Window, the Night Has Thousand Eyes, ... and many B noirs). No movies by Carlos Hugo Christensen are available on dvd, what a shame, but, if you understand spanish, there are around 20 titles directed by him on youtube, among them his version of Steeman's "l'Assassin Habite au 21", "la Muerte Camina en la Lluvia", 10 minutes shorter than Clouzot's version. Enjoy yourselves.