The Other Woman

B queen Cleo Moore is known affectionately as the "Queen of the B Movie Bad Girls" among latter-day movie buffs for her string of 1950's melodramas but actually in most of her films she's a fairly good girl who makes bad choices. That's not the case in THE OTHER WOMAN where she plays a malevolent blonde so vicious she comes close to making Ann Savage's legendary Vera in DETOUR look angelic.

Cleo stars as Sherry Stewart, a bitter film extra who is suddenly given a chance at a bit part with lines by film director Hugo Haas. Hopelessly incompetent at saying her three lines, she is gently replaced by another woman. Irrational and furious at Haas, she sets up an elaborate scheme to blackmail Hugo if not destroy him.

Although she looks sensational in one segment in a black gown and wrapped in white fur, Cleo's character is presented as cheap and a bit unbalanced and she receives some of the least flattering cinematography of her career, apparently to emphasize the character's hardness and lack of class. There are some good scenes (Sherry's disastrous attempt attempt at acting, her inner humiliation as the extras and crew smirk) but it seems a bit ironic for the less-than-spectacular director Haas to play a director with ambitions of art. This is one of Haas' better acting performances however as the luckless soul who doesn't know what has hit him, a staple film noir situation. Cleo is very good in a rather sketchy role as a vengeful blonde out of control. THE OTHER WOMAN is not likely to land on anyone's list of favorite movies but it is a fairly intriguing and unusual film noir set in Hollywood.

Hugo Haas' films are never pleasant, there is an uncomfortable uneasiness dominating all his films, but they are always very well written and therefore of lasting interest. This is one of his most unpleasant films giving an inside view of the backstage of cinema making, exposing intrigues and base money interests in a cinema director's worst nightmare, being subject to blackmail of such an extremely vicious kind that he can't get out of it except by responding in the same way. It's all about a movie extra who gets a chance of a stand in and fails miserably by showing herself a bad actress, which she takes too personally and decides to take a gruesome revenge on the director, the over-reaction of a wannabe who can't realise her own limitations - a bad loser of exorbitant proportions. She does not realise she is falling but has to bring innocents with her down in the fall at any price. This is a shocker but extremely well written, and although you will be horrified you will be fascinated at the same time and be stuck like the director to the very end.

Your heart really breaks for Hugo Haas as he confronts "The Other Woman" in this B film also starring Cleo Moore. Lance Fuller, and John Qualen.

Moore plays a would-be actress who couldn't act her way out of phone booth with the door open. When she fails miserably with three lines, the director (Haas) replaces her. An angry and deeply disturbed woman, she decides to destroy him and sets him up for blackmail.

After suckering Walter Darman (Haas) into giving her a ride home, Sherry (Moore) slips him a mickey. The next morning he has lipstick on his face and shirt, and Moore is acting as if they had a night of fun. And she makes sure her friend (Lance Fuller) stops by to see Darman there. All part of the plan.

Sherry later claims to be pregnant and wants $50,000. Darman is sure she is lying, that nothing happened, but she calls and visits his office frequently, putting on the pressure.

Hugo Haas and Cleo Moore made I think seven films together, B movies, and made a good team. Haas in his native Czechoslovakia wa a well-known actor until he had to flee the Nazis. He continued acting in the states but also became a writer and director, specializing in these B noirs.

Cleo, a blond sexpot in the Monroe tradition, has the street-wise femme fatale down and looks fantastic. Married at one time to Huey Long's son, she actually ran for Governor of Louisiana in 1956 (a publicity stunt).

Moore quit movies in 1961 when she married a multimillionaire. She certainly was a better actress than the character she played. Sadly, she died young and didn't live to see the cult status she achieved in the '80s, which continues.

All in all, like other Haas films, entertaining.

By the time he made this, his seventh independent production, Hugo Haas evidently had plenty to get off his chest both about dealing with producers and with blondes; the studio setting (as well on saving on sets) providing interesting glimpses of both the mechanics and compromises involved in the filmmaking process.

Cynically manipulated by the law by appealing to his conscience; the final shot memorably echoes that that opened the film.

Sherry Steward (Cleo Moore) is an aspiring actress and finally got a break...a very tiny part in a picture. However, she blows her few lines repeatedly and you cannot blame the director* for replacing her...especially after she loudly starts badmouthing him on the set! Despite this, she blames him for her problems. In other words, instead of learning from the incident or accepting any responsibility, she externalizes all her problems...and vows revenge. Clearly Sherry is a....well, IMDb won't let me use that word! But she sure is!

Sherry then comes up with a crazy scheme to discredit and ruin the director...talk about an overreaction! First, she manages to get the director to her apartment where she drugs him. Second, when he awakens she said that he's been intimate with her and was going to blackmail him. And, since he's a married man AND his father-in-law owns the company making his film, he's in a real bind! What's next? Well, she ends up putting this innocent man through hell, that's for sure!!

This is a very intriguing film. It has many film noir elements, though isn't exactly a noir picture. The plot is clearly very unique (though elements are a bit like the film "The Suspect", 1944) and Cleo Moore is simply terrific as an incredibly evil and vicious woman. And, Hugo Haas sure outdid himself, as he not only directed and wrote the film but actually stars in the film as the beleaguered director! All in all, very dark, exciting and original...and a film that should not be missed.