Cinema
If I Should Die Before I Wake
Si muero antes de despertar
Carlos Hugo Christensen · 1952
Synopsis
Lucio Santana, about ten years old, the son of a police inspector, discovers a clue about the man who is abducting the little girls of his neighbourhood; he keeps quiet, afraid of admitting to his father a fault he himself committed. After a classmate disappears, he sets out alone to find the killer, writes The Criterion Channel, which sees in the film a dark tale seen from a child's height. Nick Pinkerton, in Artforum, stresses the secret the boy keeps.
Context
Released on 29 April 1952, with a screenplay by the Spanish playwright Alejandro Casona based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich, the film was meant to form one of the three episodes of a single feature; having grown too long, it was released on its own. Pablo Tabernero was its cinematographer. The badly damaged negative has been partly reconstructed, and the Film Noir Foundation financed a new master; MoMA showed it in 2016 in a series devoted to Argentine film noir.
Who it is for
A tense film noir in Spanish, seventy-three minutes long, carried by a child; viewable with English subtitles.
Prizes and reception
For Manrupe and Portela, one of the best suspense works of Argentine cinema.
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