Red-125 The Argentinian movie Los tallos amargos (1956) was directed by Fernando Ayala. Carlos Cores portrays a journalist who forms an unlikely alliance with a Hungarian immigrant, played by Vassili Lambrinos. They open a fraudulent journalism correspondence school. All goes well until mistrust and jealousy intrude.The acting in the movie is outstanding, and we are treated to a film score by the great Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla.We saw this movie at the wonderful Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester. Congratulations to the Dryden for screening this film in its original 35mm format. Los tallos amargos was considered lost until a 35mm negative was found and restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.This movie might not be for everyone, but if you love film noir, this is the movie for you.

David Traversa Very dated movie done --part of it-- as expressionistic 1930s German cinema, part as realistic 1950s European neo realism, all mixed up with a very Argentinian way of interpreting the brief and blunt dialogs throughout the whole movie.The story is quite interesting. It could have been superbly interesting if the script could have been fully developed going deeply into the main character psychology and motives for his behavior instead of the bumpy way shown here so abruptly from one scene to the next (unless I saw a faulty copy with missing scenes).Our tortured main character motivations for what he does, as seen in this version, is totally incomprehensible, since he has no real proof to take such a drastic measure to solve the dilemma that tortures his feverish mind.The photography may be the best asset in this film, done in black and white with a very impressive atmosphere, dark and oppressive almost all the time.The soundtrack is also very good, following the black mood of the story very precisely and to the point. But the whole feeling disclosed here, either about the city, its people or our protagonists is nowadays as removed from us as a Christopher Columbus ship could be as incongruous standing next to an atomic submarine.

ZoltanHawks "Los tallos amargos" is a great example of film noir released out of USA. Following the tradition of classic Hollywood (the most brillant time in the history of cinema), this picture tell us the story of a poor journalist who, trying to make easy money, begins to work with an hungarian inmigrant. They start a fake journalism school and soon their pockets are full of dirty money. When the journalist begins to have suspects on your partner, the plot will become most than interesting. A perfect movie, a very good story. A picture that looks like any american film of that time. 9 out of 10.EXTRA: When the A.F.I. chose the 100 bests cinematography of all time, this argentine movie was in the list among titles like "Citizen Kane" (!)