A virtually unknown remake of M, Fritz Lang’s seminal 1931 thriller, El vampiro negro (The Black Vampire) is a revisionist take on the tale by Argentine director Román Viñoly Barreto. Thanks to the diligent efforts of the Film Noir Foundation, a stunning restoration of the film was created by UCLA Film & Television Archive, now presented in its first-ever home video release – with special thanks to Fernando Martín Peña and Argentina Sono Film.

Argentine beauty Olga Zubarry stars as a cabaret performer trying to protect her young daughter (Gogó) from a mysterious murderer while parrying the advances of the prosecutor (Roberto Escalada) pursuing the killer. Nathán Pinzón, who also appeared in Viñoly Barreto’s The Beast Must Die (La bestia debe morir) a year earlier, gives an impressive against-type performance as the disturbed pedophile hiding in plain sight.

This variation on Fritz Lang’s classic is a proto-feminist reimagining of the tale, focusing on the lives of female characters ignored in the earlier iterations. The film’s brooding cinematography (by Aníbal González Paz) enhances Olga Zubarry’s exceptional performance, which won her the Argentine Film Critics Association award for Best Actress.

“Lang’s M is a great piece of classic cinema, but this is actually the superior version. There are a lot of added layers with Olga Zubarry’s character, and the noir cinematography is just so gorgeous.” Joe Chambers, letterboxd