A Life in the Balance

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.

• Ricardo Montalbán as Antonio Gómez (as Ricardo Montalban)
• Anne Bancroft as María Ibinia
• Lee Marvin as The Killer
• José Pérez as Paco Gómez
• Rodolfo Acosta as Lt. Fernando
• Carlos Múzquiz as Capt. Saldana
• Jorge Treviño as Sergeant
• José Torvay as Andrés Martínez
• Eva Calvo as Carla Arlota
• Fanny Schiller as Carmen Martínez
• Tamara Garina as Doña Lucrecia
• Pascual García Peña as Porter
• Tony Carbajal as Pedro

• List of American films of 1955

• Cox, James H. Muting White Noise: Native American and European American Novel Traditions. University of Oklahoma Press, 2012.

• A Life in the Balance at IMDb