I had wanted to see Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems) since I first heard Eddie Muller commending it in glowing terms. (The DVD cover calls him a “noirchaelogist;” I know him mostly from his DVD commentaries and YouTube videos of his intros and outros as host of Noir Alley at Turner Classic Movies [TCM].) The DVD I borrowed came with featurettes that explain how the film was rediscovered and restored by Muller’s Film Noir Foundation, among other organizations and personnel. The film has been released on Blu-ray and DVD by Flicker Alley, so it is now getting the exposure that it deserves. I have seen the film several times now, and it did not disappoint.
I have always thought that one of the defining features of film noir is that it shows us what not to do, and Los tallos amargos is one of the best examples of what not to do. Alfredo Gasper, the main character, bases his most momentous decisions on suspicions and assumptions. He does not look for proof; he does not consider anyone else’s opinion or insight. He barges on ahead and, because this is film noir, he makes fatal mistakes.
(This article about Los tallos ameragos contains some spoilers.)
The film starts with a high-angle shot of a cab arriving at a station. The camera angle switches to a somewhat low-angle shot when two men, Alfredo Gasper and Paar Liudas, get out of the cab. An outdoor clock strikes midnight, and it is obviously hot. The two men walk into an underground rail station, where Gasper buys a one-way ticket for Liudas. They are heading to Ituzaingó, Gasper’s hometown outside Buenos Aires, for some time off. Gasper gives Liudas the excuse that a two-way ticket would expire before they could return to the city for work.
Once Gasper and Liudas are on the train for Ituzaingó, several flashbacks (in the form of memories for Gasper, and another hallmark of noir) reveal some of the circumstances leading to this one-way trip for Liudas. Gasper is a journalist at a newspaper called La Voz. Noriega, his chief editor, berates him for his lack of initiative. Nebide, the man for whom he freelances as a translator, complains about his lack of “fluidity” and still does not have the money to pay him. Andreani, a fellow reporter at La Voz, tells Gasper that he, Gasper, likes to obey, but he likes to obey important men, men who he believes do important work. He warns Gasper that this characteristic is a dangerous proclivity.
Gasper goes out with his girlfriend, Susana, after work. They see a war film, which upsets Gasper, and they leave the theater early and abruptly for Susana’s apartment. Their subsequent conversation reveals that Gasper’s behavior is not unusual, that it has happened before. Susana asks about it, but Gasper once again refuses to offer any explanation. On the way home after visiting Susana, Gasper stops at the Magyar nightclub, where he meets Paar Liudas for the first time. They meet by chance (or fate, a feature of noir, which plays its part here). Liudas overhears another reporter talk to Gasper about their work, and he is immediately drawn to Gasper. He tells Gasper that he was the editor of a newspaper, and he was also involved in smuggling before he was a bartender at the Magyar. Someone tipped off the police and he escaped, but he lost all his papers, including his ID documents, in the police raid. He tells Gasper that he doesn’t exist without papers.
It's an odd conversation, one that would probably raise alarm bells for most people. Liudas reveals a lot about himself in a single conversation, and not all of what he reveals is particularly flattering. He has to work under the table because he has no documents, and he has no documents because he lost them in a police raid. He admits to illegal activity, but he doesn’t tell Gasper any of the details of his smuggling operation. He is interested in ways to make easy money—and quickly. Gasper’s defenses may be down because he needs money, too, and he doesn’t feel like he is being paid what he is worth as a newspaper reporter.
Liudas wants to starts a journalism correspondence school to make a quick buck, and he wants Gasper to be his partner. Liudas doesn’t hide the fact that he intends to swindle people by offering cheap courses that he and Gasper create themselves. He tells Gasper that their work will be easy because there are fools everywhere who will believe anything. They also create a fake news service by stealing other journalists’ work and putting false names on the articles. They offer these articles in return for free advertising for their correspondence school.
Susana questions Gasper’s business dealings with Liudas, and viewers learn that Gasper may not be all that different from Liudas. He doesn’t reveal everything to Susana; viewers are privy to his innermost thoughts:
• Susana: “Do you like doing that? To swindle?”
• Alfredo: [to himself] “I don’t know if I like it. You are swindled. And you swindle the rest. Like it or not, you swindle for money. And now I want money. I need money.”
• Susana: [interrupting Alredo’s thoughts] “Alfredo, you haven’t answered me.”
• Alfredo: “You only get rich by swindling, destroying. What, do you want me to keep suffering at the newspaper?”
Liudas eventually reveals to Gasper that he wants all the money transactions for the correspondence school in Gasper’s name. He reasons that it will take too long to renew his identification papers, and he wants to make quick money. He finally reveals that he wants the money so that he can bring his family, his wife and two sons, from Hungary to Argentina. He is worried about them, especially his older son Jarvis, because they are living behind the Iron Curtain, under a Soviet Communist regime, while the Cold War is on. This sounds like a noble cause to Gasper, who wants to do something noble with his life. He throws himself into the cause, just as his fellow news reporter, Andreani, had predicted.
Both Liudas and Gasper are complicated characters, and they may be more similar than each knows. At one point in the film, Liudas tells Elena, a woman he has met in Buenos Aires, the same story about wanting to bring his wife and sons to Argentina from Hungary, but he mentions more of his reasoning, his justification, for creating the correspondence school. He says, “I needed the money, Elena. And I got it. Money saved a lot of people in Europe [during World War II]. It gave false passports. It bought prison guards. So I made money as I could. For them [his wife and sons], Elena. For them to come.” Liudas also mentions some regret for bringing Gasper into his swindle, which helps to soften Liudas’s image somewhat for viewers.
This conversation between Liudas and Elena reminds me of Casablanca, in which a good deal of the plot, in addition to the unresolved love affair between Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund, revolves around people trying to get out of Casablanca any way they can. Most of their efforts require getting enough money to bribe officials for the documents they need to leave the city. Click here for my article about the film.
Gasper becomes suspicious of Liudas, perhaps because he invested so much of his time and profits into a cause that wasn’t really his own. And he starts to doubt that the Liudas family even exists. He eavesdrops on one of Liudas’s phone conversations with Elena. He follows them to a nightclub and tries to listen to their conversation at another table, but all he hears is that Liudas is quite sure that he (Gasper) believes everything that he says, including what he says about his family and a son named Jarvis. Gasper’s suspicions become all-consuming until he is driven by rage to commit murder.
Gasper bludgeons Liudas to death with a sledgehammer at his family home (their destination on the train ride that starts the film) and buries his body in the backyard, along with some seeds that he found in a letter that Liudas was carrying. Gasper doesn’t know where the seeds came from because it started raining when he began digging Liudas’s grave, and the ink on the letter that came with the seeds has run so badly that it is illegible. Viewers learn later that they are acacia pignalta seeds, and their bark has a lot of tannin, which makes them very bitter.
From this point onward, Los tallos amargos depicts the aftermath of the murder and its effects on Gasper. He doesn’t seem to be overwhelmed with guilt. He even says in another interior monologue, this time addressed to Liudas after his death, that he just wants to avoid being discovered, to avoid having to pay for what he has done. But he does panic whenever he fears that someone may be close to discovering the truth. When this happens, Gasper’s weak moments are revealed. He isn’t sorry for what he has done, but he surely doesn’t want anyone else to know about it, a very noir situation indeed.
The DVD that I watched came with commentary by author and film historian Imogen Sara Smith. It has lots of information about the production of the film and its place in the film noir universe. Here is a list of only a few of the great points that Smith makes:
◊ Los tallos amargos is renowned in Argentina but was unknown in the rest of the world until recently.
◊ The first scene with Andreani, in the newspaper offices, is especially interesting because of the insights that he offers to Alfredo Gasper. He tells Gasper that he, Gasper, wants to serve a great man, not be a strong leader himself. Gasper is the kind of person that makes fascism successful.
◊ Susana is a successful modern woman. She works and lives on her own in her own apartment. Gasper still lives in his family home, with his mother. Susanna is not a femme fatale in this film noir.
◊ The scene with Susana naked under the sheets tells us that she and Gasper are sleeping together. It is not a scene that would have been allowed in American films of the 1950s because of the production code.
◊ War and violence are recurring motifs in the film.
◊ Argentina didn’t join World War II until late, in 1945. The novel on which the film is based makes it clear that Gasper would have fought for the Nazis had he joined the war. Many Argentines did join the war and fought on different sides.
◊ Hungary was still behind the Iron Curtain in 1956. It is very believable that Liudas would have family back in Hungary about whom he would be very worried.
◊ Liudas knows how to spot a mark. He is both sympathetic and suspicious, a very ambiguous character. He could always be just a likable rogue.
◊ Newspaper reporting was a much more glamorous occupation in the 1930s and 1940s.
◊ Correspondence courses have something in common with modern for-profit colleges: They are scams.
Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems) definitely shows us what not to do. Gasper bases his actions on suspicions and assumptions. The only time that he considers the consequences of his actions is when someone seems to be on the verge of discovering the truth. He makes several fatal mistakes, and Liudas isn’t the only one to suffer the consequences. Unlike other noirs, where viewers have to pay attention to details, Los tallos amargos is a simple story. There are some cultural references that are hard for modern-day, non-Argentinian viewers to understand, but Imogen Sara Smith’s commentary clarifies some of them. It’s definitely worth a listen after seeing this wonderful film.
1956 release date • Directed by Fernando Ayala • Screenplay by Sergio Leonardo • Based on the novel by Adolfo Jasco • Music by Astor Piazzolla • Edited by Gerardo Rinaldi, Antonio Ripoll • Cinematography by Ricardo Younis
Carlos Cores as Alfredo Gasper • Julia Sandoval as Susana • Vassili Lambrinos as Paar Liudas • Aída Luz as Elena • Gilda Lousek as Esther Gasper • Pablo Moret as Jarvis Liudas • Bernardo Perrone as Andreani • Virginia Romay as Mrs. Gasper
Produced by Artistas Argentinos Asociados
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