Isca de Amor

One review labelled this film Hugo Haas at his worst. Well, it certainly isn't one of his best. A young man comes to a joint in the wilderness where he is invited by an old gold-digger (Hugo Haas) to form a partnership in the quest of a gold mine somewhere up in the mountains, and employed at the joint is Cleo Moore, against whom Haas warns the young man to have anything to do with her, since she is a bad woman. Naturally he does get something to do with her. The three of them go up in the mountains, and the young man actually stumbles on the gold mine, and thus you would think they all have made their fortune. Actually there's where the problems begin. This is a commonplace morality about the damnation of greed, and to make things worse there is a blizzard complicating things. The mountain scapes are wonderful, but that is about the only thing making the film worth watching.

It's typical of this film that although heroine Cleo Moore has a baby boy born out of wedlock we never see him.

Like a silent film or Russ Meyer movie without the jokes (or the voluptuousness), presented by Cedric Hardwicke as the Devil, whose projectionist (in the wittiest aside in the film) is referred to as Lucifer.

I guess that makes director/star Hugo Haas The Serpent, since rather surprisingly he proposes marriage to Miss Moore without showing any interest in consummating the union, and the Deadly Sin the film punishes turns about to be greed rather than lust.

I'm a fan of Huge Haas's films but this one was rather awkward and stilted, especially in the first half. It has a "lazy" feel to it as Haas didn't want to find the dramaturgical equivalent of his dark themes, including a sexual subtext that is never successfully realized.

Obviously one level of the sexual theme is quite explicit. But the suggestion of sexual impotence and misogyny and how that relates to the protagonist's interest in gold is never dramaturgically staged.

Especially awkward are the voice-overs, which suggests that Haas didn't know how to cinematically convey his ides except by stating them outright.

To be fair with only 3 main characters in the film, and, excluding the Haas character, only two, and with the other two isolated from each other, it's difficult to dramatically stage the themes in the film.

But Haas in my view was a cinematic genius, though he relies mainly on establishing shots for many scenes. Yet they are effective for what he wants to convey.

He himself was a superb actor and by far the best thing in the film. I've never been a fan of Cleo Moore though .Agar, who bore a striking resemblance to Jeffrey Hunter, acquitted himself fairly well.

Cinematically there is a remarkable scene where Moore and Agar are seated at a table when both their heads move into darkness. But mainly Haas relies on establishing shots that work quite well in the film.

For those who wish to explore Haas's career further, this is not the film to start with, for Haas made some very powerful films exploring the darker side of sex.

The movie BAIT is remembered, if for anything, for Cleo Moore's "kissing" incident while on a promo tour for the film. While being interviewed on live television in Chicago, the host quizzed Cleo about movie kisses and the subject somehow got around to how short they usually are. The host (no fool he!!) then suggested to Cleo that they go for a record smooch over live television to which the always publicity savvy La Moore agreed and they enjoyed a fairly chaste smooch that ran for several minutes and made national headlines. Too bad the film Cleo was promoting was not as interesting. BAIT is definitely not one of the better Cleo Moore/Hugo Haas collaborations and undoubtedly quite a few fans of the blonde sex-bomb will not be pleased to see she spends quite a bit of the film with her hair up and wearing jeans and a non-tucked in flannel shirt, not exactly pinup glamour. The movie does have it's moments though, notably the intriguing introduction by Sir Cedric Hardwicke.

Cleo stars as a cashier in a little dump of a mom-and-pop store, despised because she is an apparently unwed mother. Nasty old gold prospector Hugo Haas looks on her as trash but his partner John Agar is clearly attracted to the luckless blonde. When the men actually discover gold, greedy Haas tries to think of a way to have it all for himself and decides to marry Cleo, certain that in their secluded corner of the world Agar won't be able to resist Cleo's sex appeal, thus allowing Haas to shoot and kill him and get away with it via "the unwritten law".

The best thing about the film is the natural chemistry between Cleo Moore and John Agar. Hugo Haas makes a much better villain than sympathetic leading man so he's well cast and gives a good performance although his direction is generally uninspired. This one used to play on late shows in the 1980's fairly often but is somewhat elusive in recent years, hopefully Sony will be releasing it in their custom line of "made to order" titles following their recent success of the boxed set of "bad girls" mostly starring Cleo Moore.

Sir Cedric Hardwicke had the self satisfied look of a man whose check from Harry Cohn had just cleared as he narrates the beginning of Bait. He's playing none other than old Scratch himself as he tells how the devil can make people do wicked things.

I think old Scratch had a head start with Hugo Haas who was definitely short a whole suit in his deck of cards. Haas is a crazy old prospector who lost both a mine and a partner in the Rockies and he'd like to find the former again. But he's getting on in years and he needs a younger partner for the heavy lifting.

Enter John Agar and they do find the old mine, but he's not looking to split with a new partner. So the fiendish Haas hatches a scheme whereby he marries sluttish Cleo Moore who's a better girl than she let's on and brings her back to their cabin. I would think that curvaceous Cleo might have gotten the hint that something was amiss when Haas not only doesn't pay attention to her, but encourages her to be in Agar's company at every opportunity.

This turgid drama is as stupid as it sounds. Need I say more.