In the couple of decades leading up to the revolution, Iranian cinema was focused on melodramas and thrillers, and one of the most visionary directors of the period was Samuel Khachikian, whose films pushed the boundaries of film language and style. Dubbed the “Hitchcock of Iran,” his expressionist style lent itself to film noir aesthetics, and his narrative preferences veered toward crime, especially in Faryade Nime Shab (US: The Midnight Terror), probably his most traditionally noir story premise: an innocent everyman looking to improve his status is pulled into a criminal enterprise. After coming to the aid of a wealthy stranger named Afshar (Arman) in a bar one night, the young, ambitious Amir (Mohammad Ali Fardin) is offered a job as the man’s personal assistant, which he accepts immediately and naively (“Will you eventually tell me what my job is here?”). When Amir finally learns that Afshar’s business is counterfeit smuggling and that his previous assistant was beheaded, it’s too late to get out: Afshar and his thugs promise to dispatch not only Amir but his melodramatic fiancée Mehri (Vida Ghahremani). The predicament is further complicated by Afshar’s sex-starved wife (Parvin Ghaffari) who desires Amir so desperately that she resorts to sexual assault (“Hit me! Kill me!”). Wildly imaginative and bordering on over-the-top, Khachikian’s film is lightening-paced and relentlessly entertaining, moving from gang mutiny to bar brawl to seduction scene to gunfight to police dragnet to truck chase in the desert, culminating in a stunningly dramatic, strangely beautiful final shot of living room corpses covered with cash.