Los Tallos Amargos (aka The Bitter Stems) (1956)

A journalist (Carlos Cores), who is heavily in debt, teams up with a Hungarian immigrant (Vassili Lambrinos) to start a mail order journalism correspondence course which is basically a scam. It isn't long however before the journalist begins to suspect that he is the one being scammed and his suspicions lead him down a dark and deadly path. Based on the novel by Adolfo Jasca and directed by Fernando Ayala. Another new found film noir treasure! As good as anything that came out of Hollywood during its noir heyday, the twists and turns the film takes are provocative. Most unusual is that the protagonist's feelings of guilt don't destroy him the way it does other protagonists like CRIME AND PUNISHMENT's Raskolnikov. Instead, he pushes forward attempting to cover up his guilty secret until the inevitable moment of exposure takes away all his options. Carlos Cores is excellent here but Lambrinos gives a wonderfully ambiguous performance so you're never clear on his motivations until the end of the movie. Two aspects of the film deserve mention: Ricardo Younis' evocative B&W cinematography and Astor Piazzolla's underscore. For noir fans, this is an absolute must! With Aida Luz, Julia Sandoval, Gilda Lousek and Pablo Moret.