John Steinbeck adapted his novel The Pearl for the screen prior to its publication in the U.S. He knew that Fernández and Figueroa were the only team that could convey the emotional power hidden between the lines of the calculatedly simplistic dialogue of this story, which recounts a traditional legend of Mexico's west coast. A desperately poor Indian fisherman (Pedro Armendáriz) finds an enormous pearl which he imagines will completely change his life and that of his wife and little son. It does, but not for the better. Rather, the wondrous pearl leeches out the greed of his fellow townspeople, setting evil afoot with tragic results. A black-and-white film in every sense, The Pearl is a classic tale of a man drawn toward an inexorable fate. Armendáriz is a model, an idea, perhaps, rather than a character, and his "simple" dignity is extraordinarily well used against Gabriel Figueroa's haunting skies. This is Figueroa's, more than Steinbeck's, pearl.