Featuring the gambling sport of jai alai, popular in Latin America, in which competing athletes use a wicker device (xistera) to scoop up and fling a speeding ball (pelota) against a wall, Roberto Gavaldón’s La Noche Avanza (US: Night Falls) is a standard Mexican crime story with mountains of melodrama. Pedro Armendáriz stars as a bombastic, bumptious jai alai superstar named Marcos Arizmendi, who dumps his loyal girlfriend Rebecca (Rebecca Iturbide) for his ex-lover Sara (Anita Blanch) when she returns from Mexico a wealthy widow. Despite Rebecca’s revelation of her pregnancy, Marcos plots to leave town with Sara (and, more importantly, her wealth) as soon as possible, his plan soon thwarted by a blackmail attempt by Rebecca’s brother Armando (Carlos Muzquiz) who will publicize the secret pregnancy unless the sports star agrees to cooperate with the gambling rackets. Of course, this all leads to a downward spiral, including multiple murders. If you can overlook a few logic errors in the script, the film delivers on its noir visual potential with frequent use of mirror reflections, a dramatic nightclub set, and shots of the jai alai fronton as a sort of cage. Armendáriz is supremely effective as the womanizing, snake-like scumbag whose athletic performances are given unexpectedly copious screen time in the film’s first half.