Cornell Woolrich strikes again. The author’s fiction provides the source for León Klimovsky’s El pendiente (US: The Earring), a moody tale of adultery, blackmail, and murder starring Mirtha Legrand, the wife of Argentinian director and noir master Daniel Tinayre. The socialite wife of wealthy businessman Roberto (José Cibrián), Hilda’s (Legrand) erstwhile extramarital lover Luciano Varela (Francisco de Paula) returns one day to haunt her in the form of blackmail: he’ll expose their love letters unless she shares some of her husband’s fortune with him. Once Hilda re-engages with Varela to arrange the payoff, she discovers that blackmail is the least of her worries, beginning with a corpse. Klimovsky showers closeups on Legrand, her facial reactions driving much of the narrative, especially in the second half when the drama intensifies, including a few goose-bumps-producing moments of suspense. Visually, the film has a dreamy quality that occasionally gives way to a noir atmosphere, especially whenever the action shifts to Varela’s apartment building with its grated shadows and iron banisters.