One Girl's Confession

All around great movie.....so realistic in its nature, kept me glued to it and happy at the end, seen it a few times, one thing I realized today is the mailman who is delivering to the church at movie's end is a real mailman, he holds his mail correctly, so many movies they get that wrong!

This film could have easily been a tawdry exploitation film. Instead, it is a solid B move acted out by very good B actors. The writer is the real star of the film, as the story has several twists and turns, and the viewer will be fooled at least once. Cleo Moore, a very strong B actress who specialized in making several entertaining B films, has the lead in this one. She plays a struggling waitress working for a man who stole her father's business.

The miser gets what's coming to him (without violence), and Cleo takes his life savings. The film moves on from there with several nuances. Supporting Moore in her role is the king of B movies, Hugo Haas, who probably made more B films than any other actor I know of; at least in major roles. He plays a gambling owner of another hangout that Cleo eventually comes to work for. There is also a fisherman as a romantic interest. Well worth viewing.

Written, produced, directed, and starring... one person.... is sometimes a sign of a so-so work. In this case, it's a Hugo Haas project, with Cleo Moore as Mary, the blonde bombshell. I thought she looked a lot like Jayne Mansfield or Marilyn Monroe, and reading Cleo's history, she had indeed lost a part in "All About Eve" to Marilyn M. and also like Marilyn, Moore died quite young, at 50, from a heart attack.

In our story, we learn that she has been raised by Mr. Stark, and has been working for him, but doesn't like the way he treats her. She also witnesses a shady deal with some character, and is sure that Stark cheated her father in business. She takes the money box, and is immediately caught by the police. Mary is off to prison, and must figure out how to start over. She gets released, but is constantly worried that someone will try to take "her" money... the money that she snitched. Mary finds work in another pub, and seems to fit right in. There are some funny bits here where we see the shop-owner's girl try to palm his poker winnings, but the shop-owner (Haas) is on to her, and keeps taking it back. Well, we're about halfway through the film now, and it's all been story set-up so far. Mary tries to lend Damitrof, the owner, her money, but things go all wrong, and it FINALLY starts being a film noir. Lots of close-ups on our blonde starlet, and things are happening now! I tried to guess the rest of the story, and I was partially right, but there were some surprises along the way. Pretty good story. Certainly entertaining. Part of a "Bad Girls Columbia Films Noir Collection" from Sony.

Also keep an eye out for the prison gardener played by Burt Mustin-- he was in TONS of early films, and I remember him as Frank Purdue, in the commercials for Purdue chicken!

This movie has everything: murder, deception, the big house, hidden loot, a fisherman in love with a dame, and the dame, Cleo Moore. Cleo tries to right a wrong against her deceased father by stealing money gotten under suspicious means by her boss and her father's supposed friend. When he calls the law on her, she refuses to tell where she hid it and ultimately spends time in the clinker. She is let out, on good behavior, and things start happening again. Wherever she goes, there's action in this witty and fast-paced film noir, written and directed by costar Hugo Haas, who plays her new boss. She tries to start a new life and to find the right time to get "her" money without being followed by the law. Every once in a while, you'll find a movie to really talk about. It may not win any awards, but it sure was a lot of fun, with quick one-liners, her hip-shaking figure, and trouble galore with Cleo Moore.

ONE GIRL'S CONFESSION was one of the more popular "B" movies of the 1950's and made a modest name for it's voluptuous blonde star, Cleo Moore, as the Marilyn Monroe of the second feature. Cleo as cast as the poorly treated ward of a crook who runs a dump of a restaurant on a dock. Tired of his nastiness, Cleo decides to steal the small fortune the man has racked up in his latest illegal activity. She then buries the loot, turns herself in and serves out her jail term, knowing the money is safely stashed. But is it? And what will our blonde bombshell of a convict do with the loot once she's free? This is quite an entertaining little potboiler in which Cleo utters the semi-famous movie quote "Men are all alike, their faces are just different so you can tell them apart."