BAIT (1954)

An urbane older man (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) tells us he's famous then ushers us into a projection room. He's the devil, though he admits he rarely takes physical form and instead plants himself as a voice or suggestion in the minds of men. He proceeds to show us the following story which illustrates his point. In a small town in the California mountains, young studly John Agar has agreed to work with an older misfit Serbian (Hugo Haas) to locate a gold mine. Years ago, Haas and his partner Waltzer found a mine but on the way into town to make a claim, they got stranded in a snowstorm. Waltzer died while Haas, who was suspected by townspeople of letting him die, survived but couldn't find the mine again. While buying supplies at the general store, Agar hits it off with attractive blond single mother Cleo Moore. Haas tells Agar that she's no good, but Haas, who spends his free time praying and reading the Bible, seems to have similar feelings about her. The two men, along with Agar's dog Mike, move into an abandoned cabin in the mountains and start their search. After a few weeks (and much praying by Haas), they find the gold mine. Agar wants to make a claim but Haas, worried about claimjumpers, wants to stay over during the winter and mine the gold. During a visit to town, Haas and Agar discover that Moore, who has been delivering groceries to the mine, has been fighting off physical advances from skeevy men. Haas hatches a plan. He asks Moore to marry him so she can live with them. She agrees and moves into the cabin, though he and Moore have no intimate contact. But we soon discover that his real plan is to get Agar all hot and bothered so he'll put the moves on Moore and Haas can kill him, claiming to be an aggrieved husband, and get all the gold for himself. With winter coming, they know they'll be snowed in and tensions begin to mount, but despite a kiss or two, Agar and Moore manage to avoid temptation. Haas moves forward with his plans: he poisons Mike the dog, then during a snowstorm, offers to go to town to get supplies. What he really does is stick around and spy on Moore and Agar, waiting for the moment when he can legitimately shoot Agar.

This is another B-melodrama from director Hugo Haas featuring himself and blonde bombshell Cleo Moore (see HIT AND RUN and STRANGE FASCINATION). Usually Haas is a middle-aged loser who gets the hots for bad girl Moore; she’s usually not as bad as her reputation would have it, but she does get tangled up with a younger hotter man. That formula is in full play here and it proceeds just as you would expect. Everything about this is B-level. The script could have used another draft, as the story and characters seem more sketched in than fully developed. The sets are sparse, though with a general store and a raggedy old cabin as the only settings, not much is really called for. I like Cleo Moore and she's fine here as the mostly good girl who is mistakenly believed to be a bad girl. Haas is serviceable, nothing more, as the scheming bad guy. I can never decide if I like Agar. He's usually reliably hunky (and a bit wooden with an occasional over-the-top outburst), but his looks are odd—he plays handsome characters but his looks are actually a little quirky, like the two halves of his face don't quite match up. He also has a smirk that can come off as either sarcastic or psycho and it's not always clear which he's intending. Here, like Haas, he's adequate. We occasionally get snatches of interior monologue from Haas, like the writers couldn't figure out how else to convey the information he provides. The devil opening has nothing to do with anything; it's like Hardwicke owed the producers a day's work so they fit him in here. I liked this OK but can't get enthusiastic about it. Pictured are Agar and Moore. [YouTube]