A Life in the Balance

1955 film by Harry Horner

1 July 1955 (1955-07-01)

Running time

74 minutesCountriesMexico
United StatesLanguageEnglish

A Life in the Balance is a 1955 American-Mexican thriller film directed by Harry Horner and Rafael Portillo and starring Ricardo Montalbán, Anne Bancroft and Lee Marvin.^[1] It was shot in Mexico, and distributed in the United States by Twentieth Century Fox.

The film's sets were designed by the art director Gunther Gerszo.

Plot

Antonio Gomez is a nearly down-and-out musician and widower with an eleven year old boy, Paco in Mexico City. Trying to support his boy in the face of unemployment and neighbors who want custody of his son, Gomez argues with an ex-girlfriend over money she owes him. After he leaves, the girlfriend is murdered by the religious-fanatic serial killer terrorizing the city, who stabs his young female victims and leaves them with their arms folded. When neighbors report the argument Gomez had with the murdered girl, the police presume they are finally on the trail of the serial killer, and Gomez is their target. Gomez goes out to a pawnshop to buy his son a long-dreamed-of guitar and there meets a young woman with whom he goes looking for his son. What Gomez does not realize is that a police dragnet is closing in on him and that his boy Paco actually witnessed this most recent murder and has been trailing the killer. It's not long, though, before the killer has spotted the boy and kidnaps him. The boy is forced to accompany the killer over the course of a night while the killer is asking God who he should kill next while Paco watches and looks for a way to escape. Hauled in by the police, Antonio and Maria learn what has happened to Paco, and with the help of the police, attempt to locate him and his kidnapper before the psychopath notches up another knife murder.