The Lady Confesses (1945)

The Lady Confesses is an independent film production that was distributed by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), a so-called Poverty Row studio that produced B films on the cheap. And The Lady Confesses was certainly produced on the cheap. But even with a low budget for the film and a major spoiler for me (see the note in blue type below), I found the story engrossing. And it is compact: The film’s running time comes in at just under sixty-four minutes.

The Lady Confesses is in the public domain. You can watch it online for free at the Internet Archive by clicking here. This print is one of two at the archive, and neither one is of high quality, but viewers won’t have trouble following the story.

I knew very little about The Lady Confesses before I saw it at the Internet Archive. One of the prints had comments that I wish I hadn’t read because one of them gives away the identity of the murderer. If you don’t want to know that before you watch the film, I recommend watching without reading the comments first if you happen to find that print instead of the one at the link provided above.

The film starts with an anonymous woman knocking on Vicki McGuire’s front door. This woman tells Vicki that she cannot marry her fiancé, Larry Craig, because she, the anonymous woman, is his long-lost wife Norma. Norma has been missing for seven years and was presumed dead, but now she is back to disrupt her husband’s wedding plans and his life.

That same night, Larry Craig is in a nightclub, Club 711 (or the 711 Club; it goes by both names in the film), and he was already drunk when he arrived there. He talks to several people: Steve, the bartender; Lucky Brandon, owner of the nightclub; and Lucile Compton, a singer. He must be a regular because he seems to know almost everyone. Lucile convinces Larry to stay in her dressing room to sleep it off before visiting Vicki.

By the time Vicki calls the nightclub looking for Larry, he is sober enough to drive. He picks up Vicki before going to Norma’s home to settle their disagreements and arrange for a divorce. But when they arrive, they are greeted by Detective Harman, Captain Brown, and several police officers. The police are already at Norma’s home because she has been murdered. Larry identifies the body, and Larry and Vicki soon become suspects. They both have the same motive: Once Norma is out of the way, they can proceed with their wedding plans.

Captain Brown naturally wants to know where Larry and Vicki were all evening. Captain Brown takes Larry back to Club 711 to talk to witnesses to confirm Larry’s alibi. Detective Harmon leaves with Vicki to confirm her alibi, which viewers learn about through conversations later. Captain Brown talks to Gladys, the hat check girl; Steve, the bartender; and Lucile Compton, the singer. While Captain Brown and Larry Craig are in Lucile’s dressing room, Lucky Brandon enters to give Lucile her paycheck. Captain Brown asks Lucky if he saw Larry Craig earlier in the evening, and Lucky denies it, even though Larry did see him in Lucky’s nightclub office and even called out to him just before he left the club. Both Larry and Lucile protest the veracity of Lucky’s denial, but he insists that he never saw Larry at the nightclub earlier in the evening. Vicki’s alibi is not airtight either so she, too, remains on the suspect list.

(This article about The Lady Confesses contains some spoilers.)

Captain Brown goes to Lucky Brandon’s nightclub office next to talk to Lucky. Lucky admits that he and Norma Craig knew each other and that she loaned him $10,000 when he first opened the club. He maintains that he was in his nightclub all night during the hours when Norma was murdered. But small details between his, Larry’s, and Vicki’s stories are not adding up perfectly enough, and Captain Brown naturally continues his methodical investigation.

Both Vicki McGuire and Larry Craig believe that Captain Brown is unsure of their alibis and that their motives concerning Norma Craig being in the way of their marriage are too strong to ignore. Vicki decides to get a job at Club 711 so she can find out what she can, which Larry thinks is a bad idea. Both of them are under scrutiny, and the police can handle the investigation without Vicki putting herself in harm’s way. Vicki is undeterred by Larry’s arguments. She bribes the nightclub photographer to take her place for a couple of days.

Vicki McGuire is an amateur sleuth, but she manages to pick up several possible clues that the police seem to have missed so far:

◊ The developer working in the nightclub’s darkroom, Bill, tells her that Norma Craig and Lucky Brandon were running around together and that Lucile Compton has a crush on Lucky.

◊ Vicki overhears Lucky and Lucile arguing about Norma Craig. Vicki then goes into Lucile’s dressing room to get more information out of Lucile, but Lucile is called back to the nightclub stage to perform.

◊ Vicki snoops through Lucky Brandon’s nightclub office and finds a receipt dated the night of Norma Craig’s murder. It is made out to Norma.

◊ Lucky Brandon leaves the nightclub in a hurry, in his own car, and Vicki follows him in a cab. She follows him on foot into Norma Craig’s house, where he retrieves a pen that he had lost there. (The print at the Internet Archive is murky during these scenes, and the film is too dark to see much of what is going on. But viewers definitely know the pen belongs to Lucky Brandon because his name is engraved on it.)

How did Vicki turn into such a competent investigator, and so quickly? Is it just plain luck, or is she really that good at getting people to talk and not getting caught in places she has no business in?

The Lady Confesses is a tight story, but a few details nagged at me. None of them detract much from the story, which was meant to be compact. One of them, of course, is Vicki’s successful turn to investigation:

◊ Vicki McGuire barges into Lucile Compton’s dressing room—always uninvited—and snoops in Lucky Brandon’s nightclub office. She doesn’t need a warrant because she is not a police officer, but her bravado and confidence seemed like a rather sudden turnaround to me. Norma Craig seemed more capable of intimidating her, murder suspects not so much.

◊ Larry Craig (played by Hugh Beaumont) and Vicki McGuire (played by Mary Beth Huges) have very little chemistry on-screen. It’s hard to believe that Larry has any affection for Vicki, even before she begins her amateur sleuthing and discovers some dangerous secrets about him.

◊ How did Norma Craig keep up her beautiful and expensive home when she was gone for seven years (or more)?

◊ Were Norma and Lucky “running around” on the sly (and fooling everyone) during the seven years that she was supposedly missing? Or did Lucky find out that Norma was back in town and very much alive before anyone else did?

It is quite possible that these last two points would be answered if the print were crisp and the sound were perfect. Answers are not necessary, however, to enjoy the story. And I always enjoy seeing an actor like Hugh Beaumont, who is probably much more famous for his role as Ward Cleaver in the television sitcom Leave It to Beaver, in a film noir role. Mary Beth Hughes gets top billing, though, and she deserves it. The story really is more about her character, and she does more to help the investigation than would be expected of any ordinary civilian!

May 16, 1945, release date  •  Directed by Sam Newfield  •  Screenplay by Helen Martin  •  Based on a story by Irwin R. Franklyn  •  Music by Lee Zahler  •  Edited by Holbrook N. Todd  •  Cinematography by Jack Greenhalgh

Mary Beth Hughes as Vicki McGuire  •  Hugh Beaumont as Larry Craig  •  Edmund MacDonald as Lucky Brandon  •  Claudia Drake as Lucile Compton  •  Emmett Vogan as Police Captain Brown  •  Barbara Slater as Norma Craig  •  Edward Howard as Detective Harmon  •  Dewey Robinson as Steve, the nightclub bartender  •  Carol Andrews as Margie, the nightclub photographer  •  Ruth Brande as Gladys, the nightclub hat checker  •  Jerome Root as Bill, the nightclub photo developer

Distributed by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC)  •  Produced by Alexander-Stern Productions

The Lost One (Der Verlorene) (1951)

It’s hard not to make comparisons between The Lost One, a film cowritten and directed by Peter Lorre and one in which he also stars, and M (1931), one of Lorre’s first film appearances twenty years earlier. Both films were produced in Germany, the first before Lorre’s escape from Nazi Germany and the second on his return to the country after Germany’s defeat at the end of World War II. Lorre’s performance in each film is spectacular in very different ways, but there are overlaps in theme and subject matter that seemed especially obvious to me because I saw The Lost One for the first time just a few weeks after seeing M.

You can see The Lost One free online. Click here to see it at the Internet Archive. The link gives you the option of seeing the film with and without English subtitles. I saw the film on DVD and at the archive, and the print at the archive is crisp compared to the DVD version. Click here to read my blog article about M.

In both films, Lorre plays a murderer, and both characters (that is, the murderers) make claims about not being able to rein in their murderous impulses. In M, it is implied that World War I had such a traumatic effect on both soldiers and civilians that it unleashed antisocial behaviors. (This point is brought up in the commentary provided on the DVD.) In The Lost One, all the characters are struggling to cope with wartime destruction and then the aftermath in the postwar period following World War II. Both films are bleak in their subject matter and in their portrayal of the human condition.

The Lost One includes a disclaimer stating that it is based on factual reports from the last few years (prior to 1951). It is what is known as a rubble film, a film produced on location amid the rubble left behind after the end of World War II. It was filmed in postwar Hamburg, Germany, and the war’s destruction is noticeable in almost every shot. The war still hangs heavy over German society after the end of the war. Much of the extended flashbacks feature the bombed-out city. The present of the film takes place in a refugee camp for people displaced by the war.

The narrative starts in the postwar period, when an attendant working in the Elbe-Duvenstett refugee camp meets Dr. Rothe and tells him that someone named Novak is waiting to meet him and to assist with dispensing vaccines for the newly arrived camp inhabitants. The attendant tells Rothe that Novak is a chemist from Katowitz. He has experience and can also help Rothe with his patient workload. Rothe is in the clinic to administer vaccines when Novak shows up. He and Rothe recognize one another immediately. Rothe is visibly upset, upset enough to get up, leave the clinic, and head to the railroad tracks.

After continuing his work in the clinic, Novak arrives to what he thinks is Rothe’s empty office. He helps himself to a drink and is startled when Rothe lights a cigarette in the dark. They share a past that neither wants to talk about, at least not right away. Both want to be sure that the other will keep their secrets. Novak tells Rothe that Winkler shot himself in the head. Rothe says that that leaves just the two of them: Novak and Rothe. Novak admits that he is on the run and needs identification papers. When they run out of alcohol in the doctor’s office, Rothe suggests that they move to the camp canteen, where they can eat and drink.

At this point, viewers are in the dark about the secrets that Rothe and Novak share, and they do not know who Winkler is or how he figures in their shared past. Rothe changed his name after the war to Dr. Neumeister and assumed a new identity. He already has identification papers. Novak’s name during the war was Hösch, and he needs identification papers to flee Germany.

Rothe and Novak continue their conversation when they arrive at the camp canteen, and Rothe says that everything changed for them on December 8, 1943. The mention of this date prompts the first of several long flashbacks that tell the story Rothe has been avoiding for years. Novak would rather avoid it, too, but unlike Rothe, he is barely perturbed by the past or his current situation. He is confident, even arrogant, about his role in his shared history with Rothe. He is also convinced that Rothe can be easily blackmailed and would never do anything to harm him. He even tells Rothe at one point that he is an amateur and that he could never pick up a gun and shoot him, even though Novak knows that Rothe has the gun that Novak once carried when he was still a member of the Gestapo. He needs identification papers to escape Germany and any postwar prosecution, and he is also confident that Rothe will help him escape.

(This article about The Lost One all the spoilers.)

The extended series of flashbacks reveals that Rothe and Novak’s shared dark past suggests they are not really all that different, even though Rothe was (and still is) a respected doctor and researcher developing vaccines and antibiotics, and Novak was a Gestapo agent working undercover in Rothe’s laboratory during the war. Viewers can infer that Novak is now a wanted war criminal. Inge Hermann, Rothe’s fiancé, sold his research secrets to the Allies in London via her father in Stockholm. Rothe learns about this from Colonel Winkler and Novak, and Novak learned of it by sleeping with Hermann and gaining her trust. When Winkler and Novak broke the news to Rothe, he was overcome by two betrayals: Hermann’s and Novak’s. The date is December 8, 1943, and Rothe eventually strangles Hermann later that day. Winkler and Novak cover up the crime by calling it a suicide.

Rothe tells Novak that Hermann confessed to the affair but not to the leak of his medical research to the Allies. She attempted a reconciliation with him, but he couldn’t go through with it when Novak called on the telephone. His intrusion into the discussion between Rothe and Hermann seems to have been the catalyst that pushes Rothe over the edge and prompts his first murder.

It was hard to tell if Rothe resented Novak’s intrusion only or if he feared what Novak would do if Hermann had been allowed to live indefinitely. Novak did say that he was willing to confront Hermann himself about the research secrets, but he didn’t say explicitly if part of his mission was to kill her. It is also hard to tell if Rothe feared any repercussions from the German state because of his own carelessness. It is possible that he was worried about all these factors. Once he kills Hermann, however, he continued his research, and Novak continued working at the institute alongside him.

But the burden of living with his actions eventually becomes too burdensome for Rothe. He goes through Novak’s desk at the institute looking for a cigarette, a small step that leads to one disaster after another. In addition to cigarettes, Rothe finds Inge Hermann’s letters to Novak; he also finds Novak’s gun. He burns the letters and then decides to kill both Colonel Winkler and Novak. His search for Novak leads him to Winkler’s house because he suspects Novak of being there when he cannot find him at work or at his own home. By chance, he comes upon a secret assassination plot to kill Adolf Hitler. He overhears other Nazi officers arriving at Winkler’s home and giving the password “Babylon.” He uses it to enter and eavesdrops on the officers discussing some details of the assassination attempt.

But Novak had followed Rothe to Winkler’s home. He knew that his gun was missing and was sure that Rothe had taken it after finding the burned letters. Novak arrives at Winkler’s home where he learns of the plot himself, but he doesn’t show himself to Rothe or anyone else in the home. He calls in other Gestapo agents, and the plot is foiled. Colonel Winkler escapes and returns Novak’s gun to Rothe. His last words are instructions to kill Novak.

Novak admits now, in the canteen at the refugee camp, that he lied to Rothe: Winkler never killed himself. He and other agents caught him as was trying to escape to Switzerland. They tortured him for more information and then hanged him. Rothe is thoroughly disillusioned at this point. He had come to admire Winkler for trying to organize an assassination attempt against Hitler, and he has even more contempt for Novak now that he knows Novak’s role in Winkler’s death.

Novak tells Rothe that he and Rothe have always been lucky, and they are both lucky now to be alive. But Rothe doesn’t want to be alive and remember all that he has done, which now includes his unwitting role in leading Novak to Winkler and the secret assassination plot. Rothe pulls out Novak’s gun and then shoots him before he even has a chance to look up from the meal in front of him. Novak never believed that Rothe could shoot him or kill anyone. After shooting Novak, Rothe leaves the camp canteen and walks back to the railroad tracks. He stands on the tracks waiting for the next train, and when it arrives, he doesn’t jump out of the way.

I saw The Lost One twice on a borrowed DVD and again at the Internet Archive. The subtitles, that is, the translation, was slightly different for both versions, and I would like to give a shoutout to the translators. The choices they make when translating influence the story in subtle ways, and I find it interesting to see the different versions. For example, the DVD translation specifically identified Hösch as a Gestapo agent. The translation at the Internet Archive identified him simply as a concerned employee of the institute where both he and Dr. Rothe work. Even the spelling of Hösch’s name differs between the two versions: Hösch versus Hoesch.

As I said, The Lost One is a very dark film, even for a film noir. There aren’t many films, noir or otherwise, that end with all the main characters dead, as they do in this film. It is another example of the desperation that continued for so many people in Europe after World War II ended. I tend to think of the armistice as a definite ending point to the war. All the conflict had ended, and society was finally able to return to normal. That’s what I was taught. But that was not really true, not even here in the United States, where there was no fighting and there was no rubble to remind people of the horrors of war. If everything really had returned to normal, there probably wouldn’t have been an audience for film noir after World War II.

The Lost One is a great film and a good representation of life during and immediately after World War II. I saw it three times, and repeat viewings are certainly a big help in understanding the plot, especially because it is a German film. But it is not necessarily an easy film to watch.

September 7, 1951, release date  •  Directed by Peter Lorre  •  Screenplay by Peter Lorre, Benno Vigny, Axel Eggebrecht, Helmut Käutner  •  Music by Willy Schmidt-Gentner  •  Edited by Carl Otto Bartning  •  Cinematography by Václav Vich

Peter Lorre as Dr. Karl Rothe (aka Neumeister)  •  Karl John as Novak (aka Hösch/Hoesch)  •  Helmuth Rudolph as Colonel Winkler  •  Johanna Hofer as Frau Hermann  •  Renate Mannhardt as Inge Hermann  •  Eva Ingeborg Scholz as Ursula Weber  •  Lotte Rausch as Helene, the woman on the train  •  Gisela Trowe as the prostitute  •  Hansi Wendler as Dolien, Rothe’s secretary  •  Kurt Meister as Preefke  •  Alexander Hunzinger as the drunk  •  Josef Dahmen as Liske, the canteen manager •  Georg Siebert as Placzek, the man with the injured eye

Distributed by National-Filmverleih  •  Produced by Arnold Pressburger Filmproduktion

The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de sus Ojos) (2009)

My last article, about the film noir Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems), was released in 1956, and its story takes place in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de sus Ojos) also takes place in Argentina, mostly in Buenos Aires. Released fifty-three years later, it obviously marks a contrast with the earlier film. Both films explore similar themes of betrayal and suspicion, although in very different ways. In Los tallos amargos, the main character is consumed by suspicion and the need for revenge. In The Secret in Their Eyes, the main character is the victim of another character’s need for revenge and a grudge held over many years.

Click here to see my article about Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems).

The Secret in Their Eyes starts with fuzzy, slow-motion shots of people at a train station. An as-yet-unidentified man (Benjamin Esposito) heads for a train about to leave the platform and the train station. An as-yet-unidentified woman (Irene Menéndez Hastings) is left behind on the platform, but she runs after the train. She catches up enough to put a hand on the window of the car in which Benjamin is riding.

The film cuts to Benjamin Esposito writing the opening sequence just seen on the screen. He is dissatisfied and crosses out all of it. He starts writing again about a day further in the past: June 21, 1974. Now he is writing in the voice of Ricardo Morales, and the day is one that Morales will never forget. Morales, as a character in what Benjamin is writing, recalls a lovely day sharing breakfast with his new bride. Benjamin is dissatisfied with this opening, too, and rips up what he has written. When he starts writing again, he describes a violent rape scene that is depicted on-screen for viewers in horrific detail.

Benjamin visits his old friend, Irene, at his old office at court. She was once his coworker, and she is still working at the court as a judge. He tells her that he has started writing in his retirement and wants to write about the Morales case. She and Benjamin have never talked about the case since it was closed. Irene doesn’t really answer Benjamin’s questions about it, and she is rather sarcastic with him, but she does give Benjamin an old typewriter, one he used at the office, so that he doesn’t have to write by hand with a fountain pen. Benjamin tells Irene he has no excuses now to avoid writing, but he just doesn’t know where to start. Irene tells him to start with what he remembers most clearly, which is the moment when he met her. The film cuts to that moment, in flashback, when Benjamin fell in love at first sight.

The murder/rape victim in the Morales case is Liliana Coloto, twenty-three years old, a school teacher, recently married to Ricardo Morales. Police Inspector Baez and Benjamin, who is assigned to the case through the intervention of a fellow court investigator, Romano, talk to Morales about his wife and deliver the news about her violent death. Two builders, contractors, working in the apartment building become suspects in the murder. They are Jacinto Caceres, a Bolivian, and Juan Robles, an Argentinian. They become suspects at the suggestion of Romano, Benjamin’s career rival. But Romano just wants the case solved and to take credit for it. It is obvious that Caceres and Robles are not the killers because a neighbor saw only one man the day of the murder; however, Romano instructs police officers to beat a confession out of them. Benjamin files a complaint against Romano, who will hold a grudge against Benjamin until he exacts revenge.

(This article about The Secret in Their Eyes contains spoilers for both the film and the novel on which it is based.)

Isidoro Gómez, an old hometown friend of Liliana Coloto’s, was a suspect for Benjamin. In the present, he tells Irene about Gómez, about the way he worships Liliana in all the photos that her husband still has of her. He also tells her that he wants to follow up now because he has been sidetracked for twenty years, and he doesn’t want anything to sidetrack him now. Irene is interested in the case, but she is even more interested in Benjamin’s novel. He is happy to indulge her curiosity because he has been in love with Irene since he first met her, and the novel gives them an excuse to discuss it and thus stay in touch.

Benjamin’s coworker, Pablo Sandoval, is an alcoholic. He even drinks on the job. But he is capable of great insight, and he discovers that Gómez has a passion for soccer, Academy Soccer, in particular. Benjamin finds Pablo at his favorite watering hole, where Pablo tells him what he has learned: “A guy can change anything. His face, his home, his family, his girlfriend, his religion, his god. But there’s one thing he can’t change. He can’t change his passion.” Because of this observation, Pablo and Benjamin eventually find Gómez at a soccer match.

Gómez is goaded into confessing by Benjamin and Irene, but he is eventually released on Romano’s orders. Romano now has a prominent position in the Eva Péron government. Péron is the president of Argentina, and she is leading a dictatorship with violent right-wing tendencies. Her overthrow by a military coup ushers in a period in Argentinian history called the Dirty War. (For more information at Wikipedia about the historical context of this period in the film, click here.)

The remainder of the film follows Benjamin’s research into the Morales cold case and his efforts to write it all down as a cohesive story. This narrative structure allows for plenty of flashbacks, a hallmark of noir films. My description of the film may sound like the switch back and forth between the present (when Benjamin is writing his novel) and the past (when he was still working and investigating the Morales case) is very confusing, but that wasn’t my experience watching the film. Repeat viewings of The Secret in Their Eyes help, too, just like they do for films noir and more recent films. I always say that attention to detail is always important when viewing noir, and that certainly applies to watching The Secret in Their Eyes.

The story is also set against political corruption and violence in Argentina. This general background has a very personal effect on Benjamin Esposito. His rival Romano exacts vengeance on Benjamin for his willingness to point out Romano’s corruption in the Morales case. Romano is capable of holding a grudge for a long time, and by the time he can exact his vengeance, he holds a lot more political power in a corrupt administration. He uses his political power to convince others to help him, making it even easier for him to use deadly violence.

I read The Secret in Their Eyes, by Eduardo Sacheri, which is the basis for the film. Some of the key differences between the film and the novel include the following:

◊ Inspector Báez helps Benjamin Esposito escape Buenos Aires to the province of Jujuy in the novel. In the film, Irene Menéndez Hastings helps him escape.

◊ Pablo Sandoval sees Benjamin off at the train for Jujuy in the novel, thus adding a bit more weight to their friendship. In the film, it is Irene who sees him off, and viewers see this scene more than once: as it happened and as Benjamin remembers it.

◊ Ricardo Morales and Isidoro Gómez are both dead when Benjamin visits Morales in the novel. In the film, both are alive, and the film doesn’t specify what Benjamin does after he learns this information.

◊ Pablo Sandoval dies of cancer in the novel, and Benjamin has a chance to return from Jujuy to attend his funeral. In the film, he is killed in Benjamin’s apartment, which becomes a warning to Benjamin that his life is in danger.

◊ The film doesn’t say what Benjamin does after he learns that Ricardo Morales and Isidoro Gómez are still alive. The case thus isn’t resolved, at least not in legal terms. The novel is very clear about how Benjamin handles the news that Morales and Gómez are both dead.

◊ In the novel, Benjamin decides to declare his love for Irene, but readers do not learn what her response is. In the film, her response is depicted much more clearly.

The film and the novel are obviously the same story, in spite of these and other differences. The novel’s author, Eduardo Sacheri, cowrote the screenplay with the film’s director, Juan José Campanella. But like so many noir films, the film adaptation is just as good as the novel on which it is based. I enjoyed both very much.

The audio commentary by writer and director Juan José Campanella is available on both the DVD and Blu-ray versions of the film. Campanella provides lots of insights into the film, including the following:

◊ Finding the right tone is important from the start, the first scene. There are two story lines: a love story and detective story, and they don’t function on the same level.

◊ The film starts with a memory, the love scene where Benjamin Esposito leaves on the train, and Irene Menéndez Hastings is left behind on the station platform. People remember specific details; the rest is blurry.

◊ All the storylines are introduced in the first four minutes.

◊ Guillermo Francella (as Pablo Sandoval) is first introduced as blurry image in the background in the court office. He is very popular in Argentina, especially for his comedic performances. Campanella didn’t want his first appearance to provoke laughter or lead viewers to anticipate any comedy.

◊ The widower Ricardo Morales has two sides. He is capable of great love and passion for his wife Liliana Coloto, but he also plots a cold plan for revenge and can keep it going, hidden, for twenty-five years. His phone call to Isidoro Gómez’s mother is a memory of what Morales must have told Benjamin Esposito. Morales’s methodical side starts the phone call, but his passionate side takes over when he breaks down crying and has to hang up in the middle of the conversation.

◊ Low-angle shots allow the audience to feel like they are hiding in each scene, like they are spying on the action.

◊ Many criticized the fact that Esposito spotted the killer in the couple’s photographs. But Campanella says that police officers and court investigators develop an instinct for this sort of detail that is very hard to describe and explain. And Esposito doesn’t think he spots the murderer right away; he sees a suspect, something strange. And it ties in with the theme of the film: how the eyes can reveal so much.

◊ After his release from prison, Isidoro Gómez is working as a bodyguard for Isabel Perón, right-wing president of Argentina from 1974 to 1976. Her ouster helped to fuel Argentina’s so-called Dirty Civil War, which lasted from 1976 to 1983.

◊ In the train station, when Benjamin escapes the capital city of Buenos Aires after Sandoval’s murder in his apartment, he and Irene are dressed in black and white. Everyone else is dressed in color. It evokes a movie from the 1940s, perhaps a romantic one.

The Secret in Their Eyes contains is a wonderful film about a love story that is set against the backdrop of political corruption and violence. The betrayal, misunderstanding, and vengeance that form the basis of the plot are shocking. The narrative draws you in and keeps you engaged, even if, like me, you are not well versed in Argentina’s recent political history. I was truly surprised by the ending.

I usually find the novel to be more enjoyable, but that rule is turned on its head when it comes to noir adaptations: The film is almost always just as good as, if not better than, the novel, even if it makes substantial changes to the plot, as this screenplay does. The author of the novel, Eduardo Sacheri, is credited with cowriting the film’s screenplay. I don’t know how much he contributed, but I did wonder if he used the opportunity to try other scenarios, other outcomes, for some of his characters in the novel. Either way, both the film and the novel are wonderful on their own merits.

August 13, 2009, release date  •  Directed by Juan José Campanella  •  Screenplay by Eduardo Sacheri, Juan José Campanella  •  Based on the novel La Pregunta de sus Ojos by Eduardo Sacheri  •  Music by Federico Jusid  •  Edited by Juan José Campanella  •  Cinematography by Félix Monti

Ricardo Darín as Benjamin Esposito  •  Soledad Villamil as Irene Menéndez Hastings  •  Pablo Rago as Ricardo Morales  •  Javier Godino as Isidoro Gómez  •  Guillermo Francella as Pablo Sandoval  •  Mario Alarcón as Juez Fortuna Lacalle  •  Mariano Argento as Romano  •  José Luis Gioia as Inspector Báez  •  Carla Quevedo as Liliana Coloto  •  Juan José Ortiz as Agent Cardozo  “  Kiko Cerone as Molinari  •  Fernando Pardo as Sicora  •  Sergio López Santana as Jacinto Cáceres  •  Elvio Duvini as Juan Robles  •  Alicia Haydee Pennachi as Gómez’s mother

Distributed by Alta Films (Spain), Sony Pictures Classics (United States)  •  Produced by Haddock Films, 100 Bares, Tornasol Films

The Secret in Their Eyes, by Eduardo Sacheri  •  New York: Other Press, 2005  •  2011 English translation by John Cullen