Alma de Pecadora

Ill-gotten gains seldom prosper.

Sandwiched between " "strange fascination" and " bait" , "one girl's confession " ,although featuring the Moore/Haas couple is much more melodrama than film noir ; its numerous sudden new developments , its emphatic moral side ( the heroine wants to be punished for what she's done -though she has extenuating circumstances ,her father having been ruined by her boss- ,her good behavior in prison , her donation to charity , her desire to stay on the straight and narrow in spite of it all );sometimes her attitude takes naiveté to new limits : even if she may be afraid of being followed by a detective , telling where her dough is hidden to a man whose reputation is shady (an unrepentant gambler) is not very smart ,even though it provides the screenplay with another sudden new development.

The best idea is the scene with the gardener :pay attention to a moment which may be insignificant ,but has a pivotal importance for what comes next.

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.

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."

I suspect that in its day, most of the men who paid their fifty cents to see this in a theatre were happy the minute it started, as buxom, full-bodied, sensual Cleo Moore is stretched full screen on the beach late at night, having gone to sleep when she should be waiting tables elsewhere. In the first ten minutes of the film, driven by revenge for her father's death at the hands of her employer, Cleo decides to be very, very bad, robs her boss, and then pays the price! Bad Girl on The Move! Positives: The pace never flags, there are some fascinating camera angles reminiscent of Orson Welles, Moore is never less than charismatic (we don't watch these things expecting great acting), hunky Glenn Langen plays a local fisherman with an eye for the right blonde, and I would have paid twice just to experience the performance by the other bad girl, an extra named Ellen Stansbury who gives Cleo some competition! This film was released by Columbia Studios the same year they made the superior noir The Big Heat in addition to The Wild One, and From Here To Eternity--this little "B" special, directed by the infamous Hugo Haas, ain't heavy art and is barely noir--but I was never bored and often delighted. When it comes to Cleo, I'm easy to please.