Cast: Narciso Ibáñez Menta, Lara Hidalgo, Guillermo Battaglia, Milagros de la Vega, Nathán Pinzón, Beba Bidart, Ernesto Blanco, Gloria Ferrandiz, Humberto Balado, Josefa Goldar. Screenplay: Román Viñoly Barreto, Narciso Ibáñez Menta, based on a novel by Cecil Day-Lewis. Cinematography: Alberto Etchebehere. Art direction: Mario Vanarelli. Film editing: José Serra. Music: Silvio Vernazza.
The Beast Must Die is a well put-together version of a murder mystery written by Cecil Day-Lewis under his pseudonym Nicholas Blake, a fact that gets an ironic resonance in the story because the protagonist's name, Felix Lane, is also a pseudonym, used to conceal his identity as he plots to murder the man who killed his son. Narciso Ibáñez Menta gives a suave, cool performance as Lane, who has recorded his lethal intent in a diary. The victim, Jorge Rattery (Guillermo Battaglia), is a real nasty who terrorizes his family, any one of whom has a motive as compelling as Lane's for doing away with him. The film starts with the murder, then flashes back to reveal the motive. Some of the subtlety of the ethical dilemma Lane faces when the murder is pinned on the wrong person gets lost in the film, and there's some scenery-chewing acting along the way, but on the whole it's suspenseful and atmospheric -- though the atmosphere is more that of Argentina, where it was made, than of the England that the names of some of the characters, like Nigel and Rhoda, evoke.
