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.

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.

Flicker Alley continues their series of Argentinian film noir with NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR, a 1952 film of two stories based on works by Cornell Woolrich, the Arthur Conan Doyle of Noir, under his pen name of William Irish. The two stories 1) SOMEBODY'S ON THE PHONE and 2) THE HUMMINGBIRD COMES HOME were written in the late 1940s. The "door" referenced in the title is a metaphor for separating "good" from "evil". One must never open this "door" without suffering serious "anguish" and "pain"

The first story ("anguish") concerns a well-to-do man and his younger sister. The sister is involved with an individual who treats her very badly. When the brother tries to help her, she commits suicide leaving him bereft and angry. He becomes obsessed with avenging her death. The only clue he has to that person's identity is a signal determined by how many times a telephone rings along with briefly sighting her in a night club accompanied by an older man. He slowly gathers more details then sets out for revenge.

The second story ("pain") involves an impoverished blind mother devoted to a son she hasn't been in contact with in years. She always thinks the best of him without knowing that he's turned to a life of crime. When her son returns home with friends, she's overjoyed until she discovers they're planning a bank heist. She must then find a way to prevent the heist and save her son. How she goes about it makes for a tense unfolding which leads to a final confrontation and truly bittersweet ending.

The movie was originally intended to have a third story, IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE which is about a young schoolboy who feels compelled to keep a classmate's secret even though it resulted in the classmate's brutal death. Making it worse is that his father is a police inspector who is considering resigning because he can't solve the murder. Time passes and another classmate seems headed for the identical fate. Can the boy prevent her from being killed without breaking his vow of silence?

However, the third story would have put the movie at over two hours which was considered too long for an Argentinian feature of the day and so WAKE, being the longest of the three stories, was released as a separate short film, and is included as one of the special features on this Blu-ray release. All three stories have the look of classic film noir with lots of dark lighting, restless camerawork, and crisp editing. NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR has been fully restored while WAKE is taken from the best surviving material.

This is the fourth in Flicker Alley's ongoing series of Argentinian film noir following THE BEAST MUST DIE, THE BITTER STEMS, and THE BLACK VAMPIRE. All have been restored with the help of the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Film Noir Foundation. Not being subject to the American Production Code, the movies are darker in tone and in their subject material. They aptly show that the look and feel of film noir wasn't just confined to the United States. While all are worth seeing, DOOR is the finest of the bunch so far...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

(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.