María Félix and Dolores del Rio starred in a variety of noirs and are revered as superstars still today, but the female face of Mexican film noir arguably belongs to the fantastic Leticia Palma, who stars in more films than any of her peers in this collection, which includes Miguel Morayta’s Hipócrita..! (US: Hypocrite), a cabaretera that merges the thick noir atmosphere of 1940s Mexican cinema with obligatory over-the-top melodramatics. Severely disfigured by the gangster who murdered her father (a pitch-perfect noir sequence occurring even before the opening credits), Leticia (Palma) leads a hopeless life of misery until one day meeting the kindhearted Gerardo (Luis Beristáin), the piano player at El Cielo nightclub who not only encourages Leticia to pursue a singing career but introduces her to the plastic surgeon who proceeds to make her beautiful again and, of course, finally worthy of Gerardo’s undying love. This is noir, however, so Leticia’s joy will be short-lived, especially under the influence of gangster Pepe (Antonio Badú), who runs all the cabarets in town with an iron fist (and whose menacing persona takes a strangely unnecessary hit when he breaks into song on the dance floor). The film is dark and grim, mercifully lifted up by Palma’s couple of musical numbers at El Cielo, Herrera’s camera often capturing the drama in creative ways: low angles, Venetian blinds, doorway silhouettes, dark alleys, a rearview mirror. And, of course, everything in a Mexican noir must be exaggerated: Leticia’s facial scars, her fake eyelashes, the romantic revelations with Gerardo, the shooting bloodbath toward the end.