Julio Bracho’s Distinto amanecer (US: Another Dawn) from 1943 is impressive for many reasons but especially because it incorporates luscious noir visual techniques — deep shadows, overhead shots, Dutch angles, mirror shots — that wouldn’t become the default style in Hollywood crime productions for another year or two. With a Marlene Dietrich resemblance, Andrea Palma plays Julieta, the unhappy wife of impoverished, unfaithful husband Ignacio (Alberto Galán), who encounters her old classmate — and old flame — Octavio (Pedro Armandáriz) in a dark movie theater; when he explains he’s hiding from the governor’s thugs who believe he possesses incriminating documents, she shelters him in her home, and their old feelings are rekindled. Julieta, who works as a taxi dancer to buy food for her little brother Juanito (Narciso Busquets), is soon embroiled in corruption, murder, and an extramarital affair, all of which appear to add a much-needed spark to her life. It’s not a straightforward crime story, but, from the beautiful theater stalking sequence that opens the film to the dramatic arrival of government gangsters at the sleazy club, noir fans will appreciate the prevailing darkness and gloom (“Don’t worry, to commit suicide one must have lost all self-love, but that’s the only kind of love I still have”).