The Other

María and Magdalena are twin sisters. Magdalena married a wealthy man and inherits a fortune when he dies. María works as a manicurist and has nothing. She asks her sister for help and is refused. So she makes a plan: kill Magdalena and take her place. The plan works. Then the police come to the door with news: there is an investigation into the death of Magdalena's husband, and the suspect is Magdalena. Roberto Gavaldón directs. Dolores del Río plays both sisters. It belongs to the golden age of Mexican cinema and counts among the best known noir works of the period. Alex Phillips is the cinematographer; the lighting and the design of the shadows stand close to American noir and the film applies that style in Mexico. The idea is the cost of changing places. María takes her sister's life and with it her guilt; the narrative builds that as a fatalistic mechanism. Dolores del Río had worked in Hollywood for many years and returned to Mexico; this is among the films of that return. The same story was remade in Hollywood in 1964 as Dead Ringer, with Bette Davis. Who it is for: viewers who like Mexican noir and classical narratives about twins. Who it is not for: the plot rests on coincidence, the pace is slow, and the ending resolves according to the moral expectation of its period.