Apenas un delincuente. Transgeneric modernity at the beginnings of the Argentinean crime cinema

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Hugo Fregonese's film Apenas un delincuente (1949), from the point of view of its relationship with genre cinema. We consider that this film materializes several genre traditions (semi- documentary crime story, noir, gangster films, melodrama) that prevent its univocal labeling. Methodologically, we adopt a transgeneric approach, considering that genres never totally escape socio-historical influences for their definition, that literary works are not absolutely defined by their genre, it is just one of its many conditions, that genres are permeable to hybridizations and that film genres, determined by the production- distribution-consumption triad, can acquire different meanings in a context other than the one that gave rise to them. We will focus on five features of Apenas un delincuente that especially express crossings, deviations and singularities: the journalistic story, the criminal perspective, the pious look on the criminal actions and the play of contrasts between noir and melodrama.