Hit and Run

The Hugo Haas Bio Deserves Attention from Anyone Interested in B-Movies, Especially of the Film-Noir Type,

that He Made His Specialty in the Last-Act of a Long and Rich Career in the Movies, that Ended where He Did Everything but Sweep the Floor.

In this one, He Follows the Film-Noir Mainstay that He Repeated Now and Then of an Older, Well-to-Do Man who Manages to Snare a Young, Pretty, Bad-Girl.

Only to be Set-Up for the Knock-Off by a Femme Fatale (Cleo Moore who made 7 Movies with her discoverer).

The Handsome-Hunk on the Side-Lines Willing and Able to Do the Deed is Vince Edwards (a smoldering, sexy, Body-Builder in real life), whose Claim-to-Fame was Playing "Ben Casey" on TV for 5 Years. (1961-66).

"Hit and Run" has a Number of Thrills (check out that lion tamer Dolores Reed), Twists, and Spills, and Like Always Hugo's Bang-for-the-Buck, Delivers.

This Would be Cleo Moore's Last Film After Giving Hollywood a Try in a Few Films with some Minor Success, but Never Hit the Big-Big-Time. Just Like Her Mentor Hugo.

Once Again Check Out His Bio. A Fascinating Immigrants Hollywood History if there ever was One.

He was one of the Most Hard Working Talents that was Chewed Up by the Movie-Industry that He Loved and was Dismissed as a "Bottom Feeder" and in Later Years was Given the Undeserved Nick-Name of the "Foreign Ed Wood".

He was Once Gregory Peck's , among others, Acting Coach for Heaven Sake.

And it was their last film together. After "Hit and Run," Cleo married a multimillionaire, went into the real estate business, and never looked back. This potboiler also stars Vince Edwards.

Haas, a garage owner named Gus, meets Julie in the club where she works and gives her his card, telling her to call him about a car. You don't have to ask her twice. She shows up soon after. Before you know it, wedding bells.

From the beginning, there's a sexual tension between her and Hugo's helper Frank (Edwards). One night, Frank grabs her and declares his love. Julie is attracted to him, but tells him to leave town. Gus, meanwhile, catches on that there are some sparks.

This story has a little twist to it.

Cleo is stunning, and as usual, the focus is on her. Besides her looks, she had a strong presence. Edwards' looks normally don't appeal to me, but he is quite hunky here. Haas turns in a good performance. He was actually quite well known in his native country of Czechoslovakia.

Some trivia, the woman from the circus, whom Frank meets later in the film was Robert Mitchum's older sister. She retired after getting married.

Another highly original production by Hugo Haas with his one choice actress Cleo Moore, but this became her last film, but as usual her performance is memorable. It's the same old story again, an old fool gets enamoured with a young splendid blonde and marries her, while she after the marriage betrays him with another, and that other man is his closest associate, a fellow worker and mechanic at his garage, and it's actually he who insists on seducing her, while naturally her protests are not enough. There is a circus involved also, which appears towards the end, with a real bombshell for a female director, Dolores Reed, who brings some real titbits of sequences to the film. She even tries to seduce Cleo Moore's lover, which of course infuriates Cleo Moore who while drinking gives the whole plot away - there always seems to be a lot of drinking in Hugo Haas' films, which adds to their charm and comic touch, although Haas never reaches the height of the great jokes of Hitchcock. Still, Hugo Haas is brilliant in his own way, writing his own scripts and producing his own films and giving them a solid direction, and their plots are always ingenious. So don't miss any detail of this very carefully blended drink of a wondrous film thriller.

Cleo Moore was one of the sexiest blonde starlets of the 1950's but sadly this 1957 release was her swan song. She had starred in around ten films and was well known by the public but I guess there was just too many beautiful blondes around at the time. She's the best thing in this standard little film noir of the beautiful young wife, middle-aged husband, and the young hunk who comes between them. Looking fantastic as a platinum blonde, Cleo gives an excellent performance and her love scenes with hunky Vince Edwards are fairly torrid. Director-costar Haas seems a little too sympathetic to his own character for my liking, a boisterous auto repair shop owner who woos option-less showgirl Moore. Never a particularly good director (to say the least), Haas notably wastes the potential in one scene in the wrecked car "graveyard" beside his repair shop which manages an eerie touch nevertheless. The movie quite low budget but that proves to be an asset in capturing the angst of low-income 50's America.

This story isn't pretty, in fact it's downright scuzzy:

He's old and fat, with a bank account to match his belly. She's young and hungry, with too much peroxide and not enough scruples. Toss in a muscle-bound mechanic with a yen for faux-blonde skanks with alley cat morals and you can be sure that the postman who always rings twice will be heading for the doorbell again.

Welcome to the lower depth digs of Hugo Haas & Cleo Moore, a particularly grimy rung of the film noir inferno. Like most of their collaborations, it plays like a lurid, dog-eared pulp mystery paperback come to life, chock full of murder, mendacity, horny Hungarian junkmen with goulash for brains, Italian studs with sky-high pompadours, and femme fatales with bosoms the size of Tucker Torpedoes.

HIT AND RUN was the final collaboration between writer/director/star/gutter auteur Haas and his slatternly muse Moore. Along for the ride is Vince Edwards as the beefcake buddy who covets his best friend's bride. As with all Haas/Moore noirs, everything they touch turns to pig slop.

All told, it's one of Hugo's better efforts, a compelling, typically feverish riff on the DOUBLE INDEMNITY formula (albeit told from the perspective of the elderly cuckold) festooned with several oddball twists and turns and touches. Well worth seeking out. With Julie Mitchum, Robert's lookalike sister, as an undertaker's sassy wife.