Over-Exposed

In Over-Exposed, Cleo Moore makes an ascent from B-Girl to reigning photographer of café society that's as rapid as it is unpersuasive. She's a mid-1950s version of Blonde Ambition, or, as she puts it, `Where there's money, there's Lila – green becomes me.'

She wasn't always Lila, least of all not the night the clip joint she'd just started working for got raided. The alcoholic, has-been shutterbug (Raymond Greenleaf) who snaps her mug outside the police station takes pity on her by showing her the rudiments of his craft. She's a quick study and, more to the point, a shrewd operator, buttering up monied old janes with appeals to their deluded vanity.

Off to New York, she tries in vain to land a job as a photojournalist, though she befriends a young reporter (Richard Crenna). Instead, she opts for the glamor and easy money to be had as a `flash-girl' in a nightclub; on the side, she snaps compromising photos for a sleazy columnist (James O'Rear). Soon, she holds a concession at the poshest watering-hole in town, the Club Coco; the fact that it's mob-operated doesn't bother her, but it bothers straight-arrow Crenna, who's thinking of popping the question.

Invited to snap a birthday celebration at the club for grand dame Isobel Elsom, Moore inadvertently records the dowager's death throes as she slumps while displaying her newly acquired skills at the mambo. Moore decently destroys the photo, only to have O'Rear steal and publish the negative; closing ranks, her society clients drop her like a hot brick. Up against a wall, Moore decides to dabble in blackmail, using as bait another inadvertent picture – one that demolishes the alibi of one of club's mob backers, wanted for murder....

With elements of Shakedown and the soon-to-come Sweet Smell of Success, Over-Exposed stays a little too nice to rival them. It pulls back from any real nastiness and grit in its eagerness to keep the hard cookie Moore soft at the center (and insure smiles at the ending). Still, there are smirky glimpses into the world of parasites and lick-spittles who buzz around money, as well as welcome, old-school turns from Greenleaf and Elsom. Moore flashes solid credentials as a brassy schemer, while Crenna takes yet another step in the career that would stretch, chiefly through the magic of television, from Our Miss Brooks to The Rape of Richard Beck. Over-Exposed, diverting enough to watch, is quite under-developed.

Cleo Moore was more-less competition (via B films) for Marilyn Monroe. It is a shame that her career was short as she was a very good actress, but was saddled with innumerable low budget projects. She was long associated with indie producer Hugo Haas who generally cast her as a femme fatale in a series of "bad girl" films, which made a fortune, but did not elevate her career. The films eventually gained cult status, unfortunately, long after she left the screen. In OVER EXPOSED, and despite a slim budget, Moore is at her best playing a young blond with ambition. The film has a rather clever twist as she plays a photographer, but instead of posing in front of the camera ( in a bikini!), she works it as a business enterprise and, of course, there is a price to pay for that move as well. A neat little film noir that has been re-released via Columbia Pictures in a dvd box set, worth the price. Moore retired from films in the late 1950s and entered the real estate market, but to this day has a devout following. Some of her Hugo Haas productions have been re-issued on dvd, remastered prints, so keep watch.

A young woman learns the craft of photography, and uses her skills (and her wits) to fulfill her glamorous ambitions. This is part of a set called "Bad Girls of Film Noir" but that's a double misnomer. Lila isn't truly bad, just mildly manipulative and although the film is superficially a feminine version of Shakedown it lacks any real edge. I like my noir to be noir through and through, not just in the last 7 minutes. Cleo Moore is the only noteworthy performer in the cast (though Raymond Greenleaf is enjoyable as her mentor) and she's pretty good. It's interesting that one of the things that drives her character is a chip on her shoulder about being ogled, yet the film doesn't hesitate to objectify her, rarely passing up an opportunity to show off her shapely assets. Not bad as a time-killer and the script has some tasty lines, but overall it's forgettable.

Over-Exposed (1956)

"You'd use your grandmother's bones to pry open a cash register." That's the best line in "Over-Exposed," a surprisingly solid crime and ambition (and cheesecake) movie. But then, the second best line is when the leading bleach blonde model/photographer played by Cleo Moore has made it big, and she says, "Green becomes me."

This is a better movie than it could have been, with little known cast and crew and a story that seems at a glance to be a cross between formulaic gangster and splashy girl-photographer with some spunk. There is a love interest (a really nice guy who sees through our heroine's hard gloss to a decent kid inside) who comes and goes and seems to a lifeline to her salvation. But the real lure overall is success and money, which is found at a nightclub run by classy thugs. The movie remains a bit cheesy throughout, however, letting Lila be a club photographer wearing scant clothes, kind of like a cigarette girls did in those days.

One of the surprises was how central and accurate the photography was to the whole movie, start to finish, and I'm not talking cinematography, which was good, but the role of the photography in the plot, including shooting and developing and retouching. And blackmail, by the end. The friendly old man photographer at the start is a strong balance to the wayward and snippy young girl (Moore), and the two end up helping each other throughout.

So there is a lot going on, actually, and it's pretty well done in the main, with those occasional hiccups of a lower budget enterprise. Look for Constance Towers, who later made fame in a couple of hard hitting Sam Fuller movies (like "Naked Kiss"). Give this one a go. And know that the second half is more exciting than the first.

I just sat through the better part of a day watching Cleo Moore movies and by far this one is my favorite. She was pretty good in "One Girl's Confession", she was OK in "Women's Prison" (she just didn't have enough to do) but here she really stretches her legs. She carries the whole thing all by herself and she does it with aplomb, like the veteran she was (this was her 23rd out of 25 movies). She plays a career woman driven by her shady past to rise to the top of her profession, photography. The only fly in the ointment was Richard Crenna whose character behaved like a spoiled child, his fragile male ego threatened by her success. The end was disappointing but right along the standards of the day. Still, this one's a keeper, even with Crenna in it.