La bestia debe morir

Don't get me wrong, I love classic cinema. Hawks, Ford, Wilder, Hitchcock, you name it.

But the fact that a film is old, in black and white and with good photography doesn't mean that it's good. The way this film is put together is representative of a very naive and simple-minded way of storytelling.

The main culprit (though not the only one), is the script. Characters are not believably defined, it's all broad strokes. The main concern is the plot, instead of the humans that make it move. And the structure, while risky, has its problems too.

I can offer some examples of this:

1) When the hero woos Linda, there is nothing playful about the way he does it. Instead, he merely overflatters her. He makes himself look silly, in no way charming. This man is supposed to be intelligent.

2) Later in the film, when Rattery mistreats Linda, who is supposed to be the hero's girlfirend, he witnesses it and does nothing about it. And Linda basically accepts it.

3) At the beggining of the movie, we have a scene between a lawyer, called Nigel, and his girlfriend. It's a very long scene whose only purpose is to give us plot information. The girlfriend is never seen again, and the Nigel character is almost irrelevant to the plot.

There's good cinematography here and there, but the technique at times is also quite clumsy. There is a scene where a woman is shaking up a child, and the way it's shot and edited, it feels completely awkward. In some shots the child doesn't move but shouts off-camera, and the scene feels unreal.

Most of the performances are very broad, a lot of the times the plot moves via uninteresting and unsubtle dialogue, and the characters are simply not clearly defined. Rattery is simply a very bad person, there's very little that we can say about him, aside from that. And the hero is, well, a perfect guy: smart, elegant, well-natured... There are no nuances, no moral ambiguites, nothing. So it all plays like an old fashioned mystery stage play, where everything is naive, dumb and phony.

Ibáñez Menta, of course, was a great actor, but he didn't have a clear charater to play here, and as a leading man he's terribly unattractive.

Thanks to Eddie Muller and the Film Noir Foundation, TCM viewers were treated this fall to a restoration of The Beast Must Die (aka. La Bestia Debe Morir).

This is a cleverly constructed murder mystery with a bevy of suspects, all with sufficient motive. But you could say that about a lot of movies.

Refreshingly, motivations in this one are clear and the movie is devoid of implausible coincidences or ''dumb people making dumb decisions." I was so absorbed that after a while I forgot I was watching a Spanish-language film with English subtitles.

The cast are uniformly excellent. Narciso Ibáñez Menta doesn't strike a single false note as the writer bent on revenge. I hope to see more of his work on TCM. As for Laura Hidalgo, her career was short, but you're not likely to forget her after seeing this movie. She is the very definition of smouldering.

I've said it before and I will say it again: Eddie Muller and TCM are worth the price of my cable subscription.

THE BEAST MUST DIE (not to be confused with the 1974 Amicus horror film of the same name) is a 1952 Film Noir and is one of two new releases from Flicker Alley and the Film Noir Foundation that showcase two "lost" movies from 1950s Argentina. The film is based on a once celebrated novel from an unusual source, the 1938 crime thriller of the same name written by Nicholas Blake. What makes it unusual is that Blake was the pen name used by England's then Poet Laureate, Cecil Day-Lewis when he wrote crime novels before he became PL. Today he is remembered as the father of award winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis.

The story concerns a widower, mystery writer Felix Lane, whose young son is struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver. He becomes obsessed with finding that driver and then killing him personally. It takes a while but he eventually locates the person and then infiltrates his household in order to get closer to his victim. He befriends and uses various family members in order to achieve his quest. Lane discovers that the person is a rich, no-good scoundrel that everyone hates so his task is made both easier and harder since many people have good reasons to want him dead.

The performances by an ensemble cast of top Argentinian actors is first rate led by Narciso Ibanez Benta as the grief stricken and then later revenge obsessed father. Other standouts include Laura Hidalgo as the female lead (but not a femme fatale), Guillermo Bataglia as the "beast" who brutalizes his family, and Humberto Balado as the young nephew who reminds the father of his dead son. The photography is suitably atmospheric and the direction by Roman Vinoly Barreto is as good as anything by John Huston, Jacques Tourneur, or Anthony Mann.

Thanks once again to Flicker Alley for continuing their ongoing Film Noir Series in partnership with "Noircheologist" Eddie Muller and to his Film Nor Foundation for rescuing THE BEAST MUST DIE from oblivion. The DVD/Blu Ray combo comes with a 21 page booklet that is loaded with photos and information. Other extras include a filmed introduction on the movie with Muller, a conversation with the director's son, and a profile of lead actor Narciso Ibanez Menta. Finally there is an optional commentary from film historian Guido Segal. An absolute must have for fans of Film Noir...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Narciso Ibáñez Menta is the widowed father of a son. Although a mathematician, since the death of his wife, he has made his living by writing pulpy mysteries under a pseudonym. When the boy is killed in a traffic accident, he plots the driver's death.... and the driver dies by poison. Menta has a perfect alibi.

The first adaptation of Cecil Day Lewis' novel shows some interesting parallels to Day Lewis' life, although he was not, so far as I can tell, implicated in a murder. The distinguished poet, who became the Laureate in 1968 wrote mysteries under the pseudonym of 'Nicholas Blake. The movie is a clear film noir, with lots of foggy night scenes and a major flashback, visually interesting and with a nice degree of sexual heat running through it, that Chabrol's later version muted.

An Argentinian film noir from 1952. A boy has just poisoned the patriarch of a family w/an investigator assured of his guilt (he catches the boy trying to dispose of the incriminating potable). We then flashback as to how we got here as we meet a popular crime novelist enjoying a day out sailing w/his doting son. It's his birthday & instead of being a joyous occasion it turns tragic when he dies due to a fatal hit & run. Despondent, the novelist, played by Narciso Inbanez Menta, drowns his sorrows in booze & wayward travel but when his car gets stuck on the road near a farm, the caretaker takes him in for the night & relates to him (as he notices hanging movie star pics on a wall) about her prized autographed photo from an actress who was in the area briefly when she & her companion were stuck in the area due to a fender bender. Menta is sure this is his man (since their accident & his son's death took place at the same time). Inveigling his way w/his notoriety into the actress's orbit, his investigation leads to her man, the same poisoned fellow from the film's onset & after discovering his masochistic, arrogant nature, Menta sets out on a road to revenge (he details his conclusions & actions in a comprehensive diary) where he gets his goal but not in the way he expected. Other than the ill fitting opening (putting an unnecessarily weird time signature on a story which doesn't need it), the film ranks as an excellent contender to American counterparts w/a French version & a British mini-series made afterwards confirming the sweep of such a well told tale. The English translation of the title is "The Beast Must Die."