NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR (1952)

This Argentinian film noir from director Carlos Hugo Christensen adapts two stories by American mystery writer Cornell Woolrich ("Rear Window"). They are unrelated but tied together by a quote from an opening title card: "Good is your enlightened home, evil is your dark jungle; the door between them should never be opened." Though the noir label fits, both stories are reminiscent of episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock anthology series of the 1960s. In the first story, "Somebody On the Phone," Luisa, who shares a fancy penthouse apartment with her rich brother Raul, is up to her ears in gambling debts. At a nightclub, Raul, seated with friends, sees Luisa across the club sitting with a thuggish fellow named Prestamista. It looks like he is demanding money from her. Late that night at the apartment, he confronts her but, despite being obviously upset, she declines to share any information with him. The next day, Raul discovers that his bank account of some 70,000 pesos has been drained dry by Luisa. He also discovers that someone (we assume Prestamista) has beeen calling her using a ring code—he lets the phone ring five times and if she doesn’t pick up, he hangs up and calls right back, assuming that she is alone. Though Raul tries to help, Luisa ends up jumping to her death from the apartment. In Raul's mind, she was as good as murdered and he vows to get justice for her, leading to one of the most ambiguous (yet still satisfying) endings in all of noir.

The second story, "The Hummingbird Comes Home," begins with a note about how important touch and sound are to this story, and indeed, the central character, Rosa, is an older blind woman who lives a quiet life in relative rural isolation with her adult niece Maria. Rosa lives in hope of seeing her son Daniel again after an eight-year absence. The women hear a report on the radio of a jewel robbery we have just witnessed in which the thieves killed someone and are now on the run. The report notes that the killer is being dubbed the Hummingbird because of his propensity to whistle a current pop tune called "Uno." Shortly, Daniel shows up at his mother's house and, of course, he's the Hummingbird killer. He and an accomplice drag in a third thief who was badly wounded in the robbery. The women remain in the dark about Daniel's activities; Daniel is fairly cold towards his mother but she is so happy he has returned that she doesn't really notice anything is wrong until later in the evening after he has insisted that Rosa and Maria go to bed (while he and his associate drag the now-dead third man outside). In the quiet night, Rosa hears Daniel whistling "Uno" and then we have a Hitchcockian set-up, a bit like the last part of Wait Until Dark, with blind Rosa deciding what to do and how to do it. As good as the first story is, this is the real nail-biter, beautifully shot in the dark and well acted by all involved. Both stories use stark noir nighttime lighting very well. Though all the acting is solid, the best performances come from Angel Magana as Raul and Ilde Pirovano as Rosa. You don’t have to be a noir fan to enjoy this film and I would recommend it highly. Pictured are Angel Magana as Raul and Renee Dumas as Luisa. [TCM]