{"id":2928,"date":"2007-04-06T13:51:08","date_gmt":"2007-04-06T20:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2928"},"modified":"2021-01-22T18:01:07","modified_gmt":"2021-01-23T01:01:07","slug":"bait-1954","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2928","title":{"rendered":"Bait (1954)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;Gold isn&#8217;t money &#8212; it&#8217;s a religion!&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Poster1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Poster1-198x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"198\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-30930\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Poster1-198x300.jpg 198w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Poster1-84x128.jpg 84w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Poster1-676x1024.jpg 676w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Poster1.jpg 1878w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA crazed prospector (Hugo Haas) uses his beautiful new wife (Cleo Moore) as &#8220;bait&#8221; in order to lure his partner (John Agar) into a compromising situation.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Gold Seekers<\/li>\n<li>Greed<\/li>\n<li>Hugo Haas Films<\/li>\n<li>John Agar Films<\/li>\n<li>Love Triangle<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nCzechoslovakian emigre Hugo Haas made a string of low-budget melodramas in the 1950s, usually telling tales of lust, greed, and romantic entanglements. Although Haas&#8217;s films are often cited as campily bad, they&#8217;re actually decent entertainment &#8212; here, Haas takes a traditional love triangle and turns it on his head, with the older husband (Haas) of sexy Cleo Moore <em>encouraging<\/em> her to get it on with Agar, who (surprisingly) resists as much as possible. Indeed, although we expect Moore to be a no-good femme fatale, it turns out she&#8217;s a &#8220;decent&#8221; woman simply hoping to do the right thing for herself and her baby. Unfortunately, Moore &#8212; who starred in no less than seven of Haas&#8217;s films in the 1950s &#8212; is a rather bland romantic lead and can&#8217;t hold a candle to sassy Beverly Michaels, star of Haas&#8217;s first American film, <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2001\"><em>Pickup<\/em> (1951)<\/a>; John Agar is equally insipid as her would-be lover. Haas is the most charismatic character by far, and it&#8217;s hard not to root for him despite his nefarious plans. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>An effective low-budget tale tale of greed and lust<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Still.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Still.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"448\" height=\"252\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-30931\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Still.jpg 448w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Still-128x72.jpg 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/04\/Bait-Still-300x168.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo, but it&#8217;s recommended for fans of Hugo Haas. It&#8217;s listed as a Camp Classic in the back of Peary&#8217;s book, but I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s all that campy. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/title\/tt0046743\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/fantasticmoviemusings.com\/2016\/07\/09\/bait-1954\/\">SciFilm Review<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Gold isn&#8217;t money &#8212; it&#8217;s a religion!&#8221; Synopsis: A crazed prospector (Hugo Haas) uses his beautiful new wife (Cleo Moore) as &#8220;bait&#8221; in order to lure his partner (John Agar) into a compromising situation. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Gold Seekers Greed Hugo Haas Films John Agar Films Love Triangle Review: Czechoslovakian emigre Hugo Haas made a string of low-budget melodramas in the 1950s, usually telling tales of lust, greed, and romantic entanglements. Although Haas&#8217;s films are often cited as&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=2928\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2928"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65251,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2928\/revisions\/65251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}