Just as many American noir criminals evaded the law by fleeing to Mexico, European fugitives often escaped over the mountains into France (see Escape to France, 1948; The Big Risk, 1960; Crooked Path, 1963). Such is the case in Ignacio F. Iquino’s Camino cortado (US: Blocked Path), a kind of western-adventure-noir that follows four restless Barcelonans as they steal a fortune and head for the French border. His inheritance guarded by an estranged uncle, young Antonio (Eugenio Domingo) joins the toughminded Juan (Viktor Staal) and more reasonable Miguel (Armando Moreno) to break into the uncle’s estate and steal the money; having killed the uncle by accident, the thieves speed into the Tarragona countryside where they’re forced to navigate several encounters with the Civil Guard, Spain’s chief law enforcement agency, who are warning drivers of imminent floods from a dam break. Introduced through a mesmerizing nightclub dance number, the stunning German actress, Laya Raki, plays Cecilia, the fourth member of the group who naturally becomes the object of romantic conflict between Juan and Miguel. While Algueró’s score sounds occasionally clunky or out-of-place (angelic singing to denote a death scene?), cinematographer Goldberger captures panoramas of rivers, mountains, smokestacks, and ghost towns (when the fugitives settle into an abandoned village, the setting and tension recall William Wellman’s 1948 Yellow Sky).