Why so much hype?

the audience applauded

Powerful

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

B-movie masochist Hugo Haas gets worked over by lanky ballbuster Evelyn Michaels in the B queen's first lead where she lays waste to a couple of paramours who fail to see past her pretty face into her ugly soul before falling victim. Haas may gain sympathy but Michaels commands the screen.Widower Jan"Hunky" Horak runs the train depot away from town. Melancholy over the recent death of his dog Haas goes to the town fair to purchase a dog but he haggles over the price and instead finds himself distracted by Betty awing the local males while riding side saddle displaying some impressive gams. Instead of bringing a puppy home he brings her and they soon wed. Being a stationmaster's wife may not be her cup of tea but she's seen his bank book which makes her stay put. She's soon flirting with Steve (Allan Nixon) who fills in at the station and when Horak suddenly loses his hearing they brazenly plot in front of him.The limited acting abilities of Michaels are simply cancelled out by the uber cynical Betty with her relentless pursuit of a life on easy street if only momentarily. She can toy but once in charge holds nothing back. Haas is a bit of a European Steiger before Steiger does some interesting emoting especially when confronting the ugly truth while pretending to hear nothing. Nixon's ambiguity gives Steve a decency allowing for conflicting emotion while Howard Chamberlain as a vagabond and on to Betty's game remains on the periphery getting his barbs in. Haas direction is both steady and imaginative especially when dealing with Jan's deafness and while some scenes have a ragged finish there are flashes of suspense that crackle as Michaels emasculates and Haas crumbles. His introduction of Betty riding side saddle on a merry go round, the horse moving her body up and down in low angle dominating both the shot and the gaze of nearly every man at the fair is as in your face a femme fatale introduction as you might find in noir. Haas would later trade in Michaels in favor of Cleo Moore as his B queen. The more voluptuous Moore may have had more talent and range as an actress but she lacked her ability to convey the tough as nails resolve and misandry Michaels possessed.

Railroad worker and widower Hugo Haas is looking for a new companion after his dog died. But instead of a new dog, he finds golddigger Beverly Michaels. When she discovers he has thousands of dollars in a savings account, she digs her fangs deep into him and they get married. When Haas loses his hearing all of a sudden, and early retirement seems imminent, things are looking up for Michaels, who's unable to get to the money, and unhappy living in a remote house next to railroad tracks. She turns her female attention to fellow railroad worker Allan Nixon, to get him to push Haas off a cliff to his death, which seems to be the only way to get to the money. What they don't know however is that Haas has regained his hearing.Haas ('Bait', 'Hit And Run') does not have the best reputation as a director/actor, but he's really not that bad, he's just not that good either. Maybe I'm too nice tho, but there is something likable about Haas, as if he almost cannot contain his enthusiasm for his projects. And truth be told, he's quite good here as the naive and friendly widower. His wife at the time, Michaels ('Blonde Bait'), is not exactly the best actress, but she knows how to effectively use her abilities here. She brings the same lurid sexiness to the table as his future muse Cleo Moore, and it fits the character to a tee. Nixon is simply not that good, which might explain why his career never really went anywhere (tho apparently his off-screen behavior didn't exactly help either).Haas and experienced B-movie DoP Paul Ivano ('Black Angel', 'The Suspect') do some pretty decent work behind the camera, even tho visually the movie isn't all that striking. But it's a really competently made movie that doesn't have any dragging parts. In fact, the main negative for me was the sudden and overly sappy/happy ending, which felt out of place. Thankfully that was only a few minutes of an otherwise decent watch. Solid stuff overall tho. 7/10

***SPOILERS*** 50 year old railroad train dispatcher Jan "Hunky" Horak, Hugo Hass, had just lost his beloved dog "Nippy" who was tragically killed in a hit & run accident outside his house. With the help of his hobo friend "The Professor", Howland Chamberlain, Jan goes into town looking to buy a puppy and runs into sexy and leggy Betty, Beverly Michaels, who's on the balls of her a** looking to get some money to pay her back rent before she's thrown, together with her room--mate Irma(Jo-Carroll Dannison), out on the street. Taking advantage of the old guys loneliness and depression over the death of his dog "Nippy" Betty gets Jan to not only give her a a roof over her head three meals a day and a place to sleep but marries her in, what seemed like a few minutes, record time.Complications soon develop when Jan gets an assistant at the train station the good looking and Marlon Brando like, with a leather jacket & white T-shirt, Steve Kowalski, Allan Nixon, who soon hits on to Betty and begins a romantic affair with her. Jan who at first doesn't notice what's going on between Steve & Betty suddenly and unexpectedly loses his hearing that has both Steve & Betty's affair, at least the speaking part of it, get even more outrageous. That by them both telling each other how they love each other and what a jerk Jan is in front of him without him knowing what their talking about! There's also the fact that Betty knowing that her husband Jan has a fat bank account,$7,300.00, and plans to get her hands on it by causing him to have a fatal accident on the railroad track.***SPOILERS*** What unexpectedly does later happen is that Jan , after falling and hitting his head on the street, does get his hearing back but keeps it secret from both Steve & Betty thus finding out what the two have planned for him. It's in fact Steve who chickens out in the planned "accident" Betty is setting her husband Jan up for. This after Jan reveals that he in fact can hear which leads to a wild attack by Steve on Betty who, no surprise to us watching the movie, planned to leave him with Jan's money after he got knocked off. Jan now in full control of his life & destiny kicks the scheming and unfaithful Betty out of his house with Steve now sorry that he had anything to do with her back to both normal and his job as an assistant train dispatcher. In the end Jan gets rewarded for all the trouble & suffering he went through. That's by the "The Professor" who was keen to all that was happening, that's why he's called the "The Professor", brings Jan a new and cuddly puppy to make up for all he went through with the people, Steve & Betty, he dealt with in the movie.

The reviewer who said "Citizen Kane it ain't" got it right. This is lowbrow stuff to be sure, but for what it is, Haas demonstrates a surprisingly keen eye for both dialogue and characterization, two things supremely lacking in the cheaper and lesser BAIT produced a few years later. Best of all, this is a highly entertaining ride, with a solid and credible performance by Haas as the pigeon who all but begs for a plucking until he sees the light (or rather hears the dark) when he overhears the plotting and venomous bile directed at him by his conniving and venal wife, who believes him to be deaf.Trumping all however is the bravura dominatrixesque performance of Ms. Michaels as the throaty pointy-bra'ed femme fatale. Here's one of the few broads I've ever come across who might be able to actually compete with Ann Savage's mouthy and devouring DETOUR chippie for supremacy over a castrated male race. And leave the male species begging for more.Also in the movie's favor is a reasonably tight storyline which features some nice twists and reveals with great gusto the true depths of treachery to which Michaels gleefully stoops to get her $7300 out of Haas. Again, this isn't DOUBLE INDEMNITY and it certainly isn't Shakespeare but it's charmingly pulpy and has an agreeably creamy evil nougat centre.