Screen version of the 1949 short story "Emma Zunz" by Jorge Luis Borges. The story is really short (5 pages), spare and precise, although the ending is somewhat contrived and strains credibility. The screen adaptation (by Borges and director Leopoldo Torre Nilsson) is not entirely successful; in order to expand the tale to the length of a movie script, speeches and dialogs not in the original story have been assigned to some characters. Other characters have been introduced, which add nothing to the action. To his credit, Borges seems to have had misgivings about "Emma Zunz" as a full length movie and was disappointed by the result.
Torre Nisson's direction is well paced. Good black and white cinematography by Enrique Wallfish. Exteriors have been filmed on location in in various quarters of the city of Buenos Aires and environs. Nostalgics will appreciate this record of the city before the wave of "modernization" began in the 1960s.
