Based on a popular novel by Nicholas Blake, a pseudonym of UK Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, father of fêted actor Daniel Day-Lewis, Román Viñoly Barreto’s La bestia debe morir (US: The Beast Must Die) is a prime example of Argentinian noir and stars revered Argentinian actor Narciso Ibáñez Menta, who also co-wrote the script. Menta plays mystery novelist Felix Lane, a widower who’s determined to find out who was driving the car that killed his young son in a hit and run. His meticulous plot for revenge leads him to an actress named Linda (Laura Hidalgo, who was Menta’s actual wife at the time) and her wealthy family, which includes both a young boy named Ronnie (Hugo Balado), who reminds Menta of his deceased son, and the execrable patriarch Jorge Rattery (Guillermo Battaglia), who just might be the monster he’s been looking for. Perhaps to the detriment of narrative clarity, the plot unfolds in complex noir fashion, opening toward the story’s end and jumping back and forth in time, and features a technically advanced (for the time) sequence to convey the inner turmoil of Menta’s grieving mind. Visually, the film has many beautiful sequences in which cinematographer Etchebehere creates dream-like moments and paints emotion with light, such as the violent accident memory bookended by crashing waves, Lane’s return to his darkened home and recalling his son’s voice from upstairs, and especially Lane’s car trouble and search for assistance at a nearby country cottage. In 1969, French director Claude Chabrol would adapt Blake’s novel again as Que la bête meure (US: This Man Must Die).