In the late fifties and early sixties, Spain experienced its own mini cycle of film noir, much of it set in and around Barcelona and involving young, wayward desperadoes who turned to crime as an escape from poverty, mediocrity, or just plain boredom. Not to be confused with the 1947 Argentinian noir of the same name, Juan Bosch’s A sangre fría (US: In Cold Blood) is a standard example of this type. In his misguided quest for a better life, young Carlos (Carlos Larrañaga) recruits his old friend Enrique (Fernando Sancho), a former boxer, along with associates Antonio (Miguel Ángel Gil) and Manuel (Arturo Fernández), to rob the textile factory where Carlos used to work. As so often happens, the heist is interrupted by pesky security guards who end up dead, which only intensifies the police’s proceeding manhunt and bitter rivalries among the fugitives. Bosch uses tracking shots, slow pans, closeups, and other visual techniques to keep the less-than-original story engaging, but where his noir atmosphere really shines is in the lighting, which casts a constant, poetic glow on key characters, particularly during interior scenes. Borrowing the modish jazz style suddenly popular in French crime films of the period, Solá’s easygoing score emphasizes cool brass and percussion (xylophone in particular) in the gray of the city while the incessant chants of heat bugs take over once the chase advances to the countryside.