Bait (1954)

Simply Perfect

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

****MAJOR SPOILERS**** The usually abused, mostly by sexy women, but somewhat lovable Hugo Hass plays a real skunk here as a gold obsessed prospector who uses everyone he can get his hands on to first find this gold mine in the Rockie Mountains he forgot to chart and then off them to keep the yellow & glittering medal all for himself. This isn't something new with Marko in him pulling off the same stunt with a previous partner of his only to forget, in his haste, to write out a map of where the gold mine was! Getting a young farm hand Ray Brighton, John Agar, to help him locate the mine which he did Marko then plans to off him like his previous partner and keep all the gold for himself. That by him making Brighton's murder look like an accident!In the case of the naive in what he planning for him Brighton the scheming Marko goes so far as getting local unwed mom and diner waitress Peggy, Cleo Moore, to marry him and then set her and Brighton up in a sizzling affair. With Marko acting as being the cheated on husband and finding them in bed together he'll then blast them in a righteous rage on his part: Only the great Hugo Hass can come up with a story like that! In a case like that, a husband catching his wife & lover in bed together, Marko knows that no jury on earth would ever convict him of murder. That's the plan on Marko's part but it's, no pun intended, execution turns out to be in it being the perfect murder far from being perfect!***SPOILERS*** It doesn't take long for Brighton to figurer Marko out in how he's trying to set him and Peggy up in playing the abused and cheated upon husband. Marko doesn't show any love for his wife Peggy at all and the only love he does show is that for the gold that's being mined. The rat like Marko even goes so far as killing Brigton's loyal dog Mike when he sniffed out what he was up to and tried to alert his master, Ray Brighton, about it! Making believe that he's going into town some ten miles away to get supplies Marko plans to find Brighton and Peggy in a compromising position, that he plans to get them into, and end up killing them. The plan soon falls apart with not only Brighton being on to him but a major snow storm rolling in that's to foil his escape plans! Actor director Hugo Hass drops his usual abused and screwed over husband & boyfriend act here and does a good job playing a murderous villain. The only problem that Hass has is in convincing anyone, but his love starved wife Peggy, what a phony he really is and what his devious plans really are!

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.

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.