Argentinian Noir Double Bill 2: Film Noir UK

With UK Premieres of three brand new restorations from the Film Noir Foundation, Film Noir UK presents two double bills highlighting the dark thrills of classic themed South American Noir.

Rarely seen on the big screen since their initial runs back in the 1950s, La Bestia Debe Morir (The Beast Must Die/1952), Los Tallos Amargos (The Bitter Stems/1956) and El Vampiro Negro (The Black Vampire/1953) are wipe for rediscovery. Throw in Jacques Tourneur’s The Leopard Man (1943) then you have two double bills which will chill but also thrill you in good measure...

The Leopard Man (66 mins)

Produced by RKO’s master of suspense and terror Val Lewton, Jacques Tourneur’s New Mexico-based thriller spins every aspects of both noir and horror bringing one of the true classics from golden age of the RKO studio.

When a supposedly tame black leopard escapes from a New Mexico nightclub, young girls start to die... in horrible ways! While the police desperately search for the beast, nightclub singer Kiki Walker (Jean Brooks) and her manager Jerry Manning (Dennis O'Keefe) start to suspect that someone or something far worse is responsible for the killings.

The Black Vampire (90 mins)

A virtually unknown remake of M, Fritz Lang’s seminal 1931 thriller, The Black Vampire is a revisionist take on the tale by Argentine director Román Viñoly Barreto.

Argentine beauty Olga Zubarry stars as a cabaret performer trying to protect her young daughter (Gogó) from a mysterious murderer while parrying the advances of the prosecutor (Roberto Escalada) pursuing the killer. Nathán Pinzón, who also appeared in Viñoly Barreto’s The Beast Must Die (La Bestia Debe Morir) a year earlier, gives an impressive against-type performance as the disturbed monster hiding in plain sight.

Presented by Film Noir UK as part of the BFI’s In Dreams Are Monsters season.