One of Turkey’s most prolific producers and directors, Memduh Ün released a string of entertaining crime films in the 1960’s, including the exceptional Bire on vardi and this film, Kanun Karşısında (US: Before the Law), which gave us one of noir’s most irredeemable femmes fatale at the tail end of the cycle. Turkish superstar Ayhan Isik stars as Selim, a college dropout with a dark past who’s currently working at a bar owned by his friend Rüstem (Reha Yurdakul) but whose life is turned upside down when sexy Leyla (Elif Türkan) enters the bar one night at closing time, followed by her enraged, knife-wielding boyfriend whom Selim is compelled to attack and knock out. Against his better judgment, Selim enters a sexual affair with the manipulative Leyla, which leads to a robbery attempt, a police altercation, and flight from a murder rap. Years later, after Selim has returned to school, become an architect, married a nice girl (Fatma Girik), and had a child, Leyla once again descends on him, and this time he has much more to lose. While the pacing slows down a bit in the second act, Before the Law throbs with tension for most of its runtime, intensified perhaps most of all by Ebcioglu’s fantastic, novel score which shifts from casual piano to pounding bass to help establish atmosphere as needed, while Ün’s dark visual palette and lensing innovation, including a proclivity for upward point-of-view shots, help fuel the dramatic momentum.