La Otra (1945), dir. Roberto Gavaldón. Heights Theater, Thursday, December 15.

A masterpiece by just about any noir standard, La Otra screened to about 75 people on a snowy night at the Heights Theater. The people I spoke to were amazed at what they’d seen, as this was a new experience for fans of classic noir or just old films in general. La Otra has never been screened in Minnesota before, and is not available screening. Only recently was it even available in a DVD or Blu-ray; prior to this you could only see wobbly YouTube videos without English subtitles.

This was part of the Heights’ Coal or Candy holiday series, featuring movies that had Christmas themes in them, even if only slightly (it’s really an excuse to screen little-seen gems like this or rake in money from the Miracle on 34th Street crowd). In this case, a murder is committed on Christmas day. The story is that María Méndez (Dolores Del Rio) is despondent–she has lost her job, has virtually no money, and lives in a little hovel that looks out on a tiny courtyard and above the other slums of Mexico City. Her sister, Magdalena, is rich, having married a wealthy industrialist who once was in love with María. As the film opens, the industrialist, not an old man, has died mysteriously, his casket being lowered into a freshly dug grave.

María has a fiancee, a cop, and cannot get past how a life of luxury has passed her by, and now she can’t even marry her detective lover because they have no money. Visiting her sister after the funeral of the industrialist, María is mistaken by the help for Magdalena. Inspired, she decides to kill her wealthy sister and assume her identity, finally living in the luxury she feels has been denied her.

La Otra is a sizzling little noir, part melodrama and part crime picture, but, to me, it also almost too disturbing because of what happens to our anti-hero. María murders her sister, and yeah, at the time she should be punished. But La Otra is all about punishment, self-inflicted punishment, a living hell in which we soon learn that this woman’s crime was not killing her sister, but in failing to see the joy in her own life, which she has also murdered. In taking on Magdalene’s life and personality, María has committed a sort-of spiritual suicide. Trapped in her sister’s life, she is no longer able to live as herself, and soon, Magdalena’s shallow and duplicitous life further drown María in an existence that is damnable.

María’s life was one of struggle, but there were people, poor people, good people, mean people, riding buses or bursting firecrackers in celebration of Christmas. There’s a waiter at her favorite Chinese restaurant and, of course, her man. María’s little apartment looked out on a pretty courtyard filled with children; Magdalena’s mansion has enormous windows always blocked with massive curtains, wide hallways and rooms with closed doors. Magdalena’s servants hate her and she’s surrounded by slimy men on the make and backstabbing women. Once the crime is committed, we never see María eating, we never see her happy. We see her buying things and then we see looking wistfully at her former lover, reading her fake suicide letter (the last piece of her old life) as she descends further into this existential hell. It’s disturbing.

I hate that no one in America gives a rip about this film, because it should be a staple of noir festivals and lists, right alongside the greatest noirs. But at least 75 of us were enthralled by Del Rio’s astounding performance and the cinematic despair unfolding before us.