The noir style oozes from every scene of Manuel Mur Oti’s A hierro muere (US: Kill and Be Killed), an under-appreciated, late Argentinian work starring the intense facial expressions of Olga Zubarry and her unique ability to convey coldness and vulnerability at the same time. A remake of Daniel Tinayre’s In Cold Blood (1947), the film centers on an ex-convict, jewel thief and former nurse named Elisa (Zubarry) who obtains a job assisting her mother as caretaker for a wealthy, retired opera singer who lives with her creepy nephew Fernando (Alberto de Mendoza). Within days, Elisa and Fernando are having an affair and plotting his aunt’s demise in order to inherit her fortune, an enterprise that will be complicated by a savvy doctor who intercedes at his own peril. Extreme close-ups and a string-strumming score provide an intimacy that alternates with the semi-Gothic grandiosity of baroque doors and blackened fireplaces. The most dramatic element, however, is Zubarry’s ashen, stoic face, which steals every scene: follow along as she prepares the poisoned milk and displays it for Fernando’s inspection as he commands the piano keys or as she drags a dead body downstairs and stuffs it into the car’s trunk as if placing a turkey in the oven.