Of all the Mexican noirs, Juan Bustillo Oro’s El medallón del crimen (El 13 de oro) is possibly the most classically American in its story and theme: a simple, happy family man starts up a harmless flirtation with a beautiful woman but ends up the prime suspect in her murder later that night. The family man here is Raúl González (Manolo Fábregas), who’s dragged out for drinks after work and meets the lovely María Álvarez (Rita Macedo); deigning to escort her back to her apartment, the drunk González falls asleep on the sofa while hiding from María’s gangster boyfriend, who pays a visit unannounced, and when González wakes up, María is gone. Only later does he realize that he’s driven back to his house with her corpse in the back seat. It’s a perfect noir set-up. While Fábregas plays the everyman role with a quirky, occasionally comedic flavor (his expression of relief every time he gets out of a jam looks right out of the silent era), the film is heavy in parts — three characters, two of them women, are shot dead in three separate incidents — and the suspense is well-crafted, perhaps most notably when Raúl endeavors to return the corpse to its apartment.