Mario Camus, one of the best and more recognized Spanish directors ('La Colmena', 'Los Santos Inocentes'), made in the 60 some remarkable films like 'Young Sanchez' or 'Con el viento solano'.
In this one you can note the hand of the great Carlos Saura in a story that launches with Javier (Alberto Closas), a man who cheats her wife Marisa (Mabel Karr). This high class couple is not very happy but what seems to be a drama soon become a thriller when a murder takes place and Marisa dies from a heart attach at the discovering of the corpse. The main suspect is Javier.
As usual in his films, Camus shoot this one with a lot elegance, firm and steady steps, and the cinematography is also beautiful. Set in Barcelona, it is also a nice document of how was the city at the time, the cars or even the flats, with a superb production design. In that way the film is pleasure and the story is also interesting till the end.
But the film has also some trouble: One is the choice of Alberto Closas for the main role; though he was a great actor and his performance is nice, he was mostly a comedy actor and despite of his always big presence on screen is not completely credible.
Besides, the plot is not developed exactly as a thriller, there's not the strain in that sort of movies and though Javier has to work to prove his innocence he doesn't seem stressed for it and, in fact, the police is never a menace for him (may be because because he is rich!!) like in similar situation we saw Henry Fonda in Hitchcock's 'The Wrong Man' or even Closas in the amazing 'Muerte de un Ciclista'. In addition of all this, is too obvious from the beginning to the top of the film who is the murderer.
Anyway, as i wrote above, the films is very watchable if you simply like movies (there are many Italian pictures of this period similar in plot and images treatment to this one, and very few are better).
Beautiful and young Mara Goyanes is delicious in the role of a silly cabaret girl and in the cast is also a magnificent actor: Tomas Blanco. Trouble is that is dubbed in the copy i watch on TV.
