Strange Fascination

Hugo Haas was a middle-aged character actor who began writing, producing and starring in (though playing second fiddle to glamorous blondes) low-budget films in the 1950's. His first two films as "auteur" starred Beverly Michaels but it was his seven collaborations with beautiful Cleo Moore that are better remembered today. STRANGE FASCINATION was their first film together and one of the more conservative, less lurid of the bunch, a fairly conventional drama of a renown concert pianist (Haas) who becomes attracted to and marries a nightclub dancer (Moore) which starts him on the road to ruin. A few years later, Moore's character would have been a bad girl who took him for everything he had, here she's rather sweet girl who is really not responsible for his problems. Since the melodrama here is low key this is one of the duller Moore/Haas romps but Cleo looks close to her most beautiful with a pageboy hairstyle and cute clothes and for movie buffs there's 1930's starlet Mona Barrie in a featured part.