L'étrange fascination

Euro pianist paul marvan (haas) is brought back to the united states by the wealthy diana fowler ( monie barrie). But marvan falls for another girl (cleo moore), and marries her, sabotaging his own career. Or at least his steady income from mrs. Fowler. And when he needs money, he comes up with a low-down, illegal scheme to raise money fast. Will it work? What will happen to them? It's a bit over the top, but probably plausible, maybe during the depression. Written and directed by hugo haas. Sometimes bad things happen when the same person writes, directs, and stars in a film. But in this case, it turned out okay! Produced by haas himself, for columbia pictures. Haas and moore made a whole bunch of films together, with very similar plots.

A European pianist comes to America and falls for a dancehall girl. Written, directed, produced and starring Hugo Haas, who doesn't do a particularly good job in any of those roles. The script is lifeless and poorly written (including a second act twist that doesn't make a lick of sense), a lot of very prosaic drama that never catches fire. The camera-work is entirely uninteresting, and borderline amateurish. The performances and characterizations are bland. This is the first of seven films that Haas did with pin-up gal Cleo Moore, which is odd because here they have little chemistry together. The film is categorized as noir, but that seems like a stretch by any definition of the genre. Only in the final 10 minutes do we get any compelling plot material, and I will say I quite liked the ending. But otherwise it's a snooze.

Entertaining run of the mill 1950s b movie brightened by the beauty and charisma of Cleo Taurus Moore.

I won't belabor you with plot details -- other reviewers have done that just fine.

I do disagree with most of the ratings that precede mine. Greatness here? No. But definitely watchable with two very real characters (that's scripting) and two solid performances.

I have no idea what the cost of making Strange Fascination was. It seemed low-cost but not corner-cutting. I'm no high-brow musically, I never heard of Hugo Haas and barely knew of Cleo Moore. I didn't enter with great expectations. I came away pleasantly surprised. I found a good mix of on-screen chemistry, despite the characters' wide variance in background and age.

Directors who act in their own films would probably want to be their own lawyers. (This means you, Heywood Allen.) Here, Haas comes out OK both in front of and behind the camera. Moore is appropriately attractive, as well as being effective.

Good, tight, well executed B-plus film. Worth your while. Mine, anyway.

Hugo Haas is a famous European piano virtuoso who's brought to the States by wealthy widow Mona Barrie. Haas goes on a concert tour where he meets dancer Cleo Moore, and they end up getting married. As Haas struggles to break thorugh in the States, he also struggles to keep both Moore and Barrie happy. But Barrie isn't crazy about Haas's marriage and cuts off her financial support. And when Moore is also thinking about going back to her old dance partner, Haas gets desperate and thinks about collecting the insurance on his hands, somehow...

This was director, writer, actor and producer Hugo Haas ('Pickup') and Cleo Moore's ('On Dangerous Ground') first of 7 collaborations. Moore is far less of a femme fatale in this one than their subsequent movies, but Haas plays essentially the same role as in most of the other ones (ditto in his movies with Beverly Michaels), a 'simple' man who gets involved with the wrong woman and ends up in a downward spiral. Noone can accuse Haas of having too much talent as a writer, director or actor, but as with the title of this movie, he's strangely fascinating to watch. In some close-up's it almost as if you can see him thinking about how to portray emotions. In any case, and for whatever reason, with Haas I don't mind it, I find him very likeable somehow.

Haas's movies are almost invariably low budget affairs, but he does a nice job here with limited means, with a surprising high amount of sets. And experienced DoP Paul Ivano ('The Shanghai Gesture', 'Black Angel') also added a bit of noir aesthetic to this movie, unfortunately not a lot tho. But this is not one of Haas's best efforts, also because Moore's character is nowhere near the sultry and sleazy characters she would portray in her later movies under Haas. It's a decent noir-ish melodrama, but no need to go out of your way to see this one.