With obvious story parallels to Josef von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel (1930) two decades earlier, which may help explain the film’s warm reception among European critics, Alberto Gout’s Sensualidad (US: Sensuality) capitalizes on Ninón Sevilla’s explosive screen presence and performance as perhaps Mexican noir’s most evil femme fatale, to deliver an unforgettable noir-melodrama-musical that fires on all cylinders. After she serves a two-year prison sentence for robbery, rumba dancer and singer Aurora (Sevilla), with the encouragement of her pimp-boyfriend “El Rizos” (Rodolfo Acosta), seizes on an opportunity to exact revenge on the judge (Fernando Soler) who had her put away: her plot to seduce him away from his wife and family ends in his total ruination, including at least one death, prompting his handsome son Raúl (Rubén Rojo) to confront Aurora about her actions and, of course, fall under her spell too. Legendary cinematographer Alex Phillips establishes plenty of expressionist ambience, especially during the shadow-rich opening and closing sequences, and employs low angles and Dutch angles during night scenes on the lonely streets. The nightclub musical numbers are predictably outlandish, one utilizing an enormous stage designed as a hacienda with dancing farmers, and Sevilla’s costumes are equally spectacular, at one point donning what appears to be a curtain rod across her back with gargantuan shoulder pads like lamp shades along with tight shorts like panties. It’s all gloriously insane.