Bait

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.

Another in the long line of the Trials-and-Tribulations (compounded by Misery and Irony) offerings from Hugo Haas. This time out his character, Marko, is searching for a lost gold mine with his young partner Ray Brighton and, despite the fact that Haas appears no more at home playing a prospector than Raymond Hatton would playing a Bulgarian diplomat, they find the mine. But Marko decides he doesn't want to share with his partner and figures out a devious and complicated scheme to get rid of him. (Shooting him in the head and burying him in the desert is far too simple a solution in a Haas film.) So, Marko ups and marries buxom young Peggy as a marriage of convenience, even though past experience would indicate any involvement with a character played by Cleo Moore would not be described as anything close to convenience. Rikor figures that after the three of them spend the winter together in a shack far from civilization, he will sooner or later catch them in adultery, and he can use the "unwritten law" to kill Brighton and thus escape punishment from the law. But "Murphy's Law" rears its ugly head.

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.

Into the world of Hugo Haas and Cleo Moore yet again, this time with "Bait" from 1954.

I like what one reviewer said - Haas does these movies on no money, acts in them himself, and somehow, they work. Well, sort of.

In this one, Haas plays Marko, a man who once found a gold mine and has been unable to find it again searches every year.

However, he manages to talk a young man, Ray Brighton, to pay expenses and, should they find the mine, work it for 50% apiece.

Marko, however, has no intention of splitting the gold with anyone, of which he informs Ray. When Ray threatens to leave, Marko again agrees to their original terms.

Marko has an idea of how to get rid of his "partner." He marries an attractive woman (Moore) who has an illegitimate child and works where the two get their supplies. She's happy for a little security.

There's no question that she and Ray are attracted to one another, but she refuses to give into him. Marko is sure they will succumb to adultery, and then he will be able to kill Ray.

Now, I must point out, the beginning of this film was not shown in the film I saw. It is apparently a narration by Sir Cedric Hardwicke as the Devil, who says he can manipulate people to do things. Don't ask me what Sir Cedric was thinking of other than a paycheck.

The very pretty Moore wears baggy clothes throughout for some reason. Her character is thought of as a "loose woman," but she isn't.

Haas really acts nuts in this. Why anyone would want to spend winter in a cabin with him is beyond me.