Do Abismo ao Ódio

Hugo Haas made films that were quite different from what was normally made in Hollywood, the women were often uncompromisingly mean or at least unpleasant and there was usually no happy ending.

I must admit that i often like that in his films , ik makes the female characters much more realistic .

This film is not much different, Cleo Moore plays her nasty role very well, maybe with some overacting but still good, Hugo Haas once again plays himself in his own film, the man is far from being a top actor but it is enough.

It is a shame that these films have always been stuck in the B segment, because there was potential in this story.

Hugo Haas, born in Czechoslovakia but driven out of his country by Hitler, immigrated to the United States. He is a curious figure in the history of independent American film. Rather like his contemporary Sam Fuller, he produced, wrote, and directed any number of low-budget films, often released under the banner of a major studio, but apparently with little studio interference. Unlike other auteurs, he was completely in charge of the product; in Hass' case, the standard "B" picture thriller on the lower half of the double feature. Haas usually played the male role in his films: that of a bewildered middle-aged and slightly overweight European, the unwilling victim of a sleek sexy but thoroughly cold-blooded American woman, living by her wits, out to get some poor sucker's money in any way possible. Cleo Moore or Beverly Michaels usually played the archetypical blonde; neither by Hollywood standards conventional beauties, more like George Grocz caricatures of femme fatales. There is no doubt that Haas was a serious filmmaker, very ambitious despite his limited budgets; one, however, that neither the newspaper critics in the United States nor, more surprisingly, the Cahier du Cinema gang chose to embrace. This film is probably his best, because it offers in addition to a conventional blackmail plot a backstage look at the real Poverty Row Hollywood with its thrown together sets, offices, cutting-rooms and out of work actors. In the story Hass is an émigré director, married to the daughter of the head of a big studio, played here perfectly by Jack Macy, who for once actually looks and sounds like a typical mogul of the time. No Walter Pidgeon he. There are some unusual exchanges between Haas and Macy about what makes for a commercial film. The dialogue comes from the heart. Haas's. Well worth watching.

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.

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.

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.