Having made Fuera de la ley (1937), widely considered Argentina’s first (proto)noir, five years earlier, director Manuel Romero helped establish that country’s crime canon, which also includes Historia de crímenes (US: History of Crimes), an early take on a familiar premise: a wealthy, aging man loses everything for the love and attention of a beautiful woman. While we’ll go on to see variations on this story in Fritz Lang’s The Woman in the Window (1944) and Scarlet Street (1945), among many others, Romero’s film replaces the femme fatale with a protagonist who’s the willful agent of his own destruction. While managing the fortune inherited by his niece Esther (Nury Montsé), wealthy banker Enrique Mendel (Narciso Ibáñez Menta) falls head over heels for Lucy Torres (Zully Moreno), a chorus girl who’s attracted to his money and charms at first. As Mendel proceeds to squander his fortune and implicate the girl in his crimes, Lucy tries but fails to get away, ultimately finding help with Gervasio (Severo Fernández), one of Mendel’s former employees who loves detective novels and sensed Mendel’s suspicious behavior early on. Alfredo Jordán plays Ricardo, Esther’s fiancée and Mendel’s bank manager who will pay a price for his kindness. The film doesn’t boast much in the way of noir visuals, but the story’s told as a series of flashbacks narrated by Mendel’s guttural baritone from a dark prison cell.