clanciai Review of Hit and Run

Hit and Run (1957)

Many subtle turnings in this dubious double plot of intricate tricks

[9/10 · 27 June 2023]

Another highly original production by Hugo Haas with his one choice actress Cleo Moore, but this became her last film, but as usual her performance is memorable. It's the same old story again, an old fool gets enamoured with a young splendid blonde and marries her, while she after the marriage betrays him with another, and that other man is his closest associate, a fellow worker and mechanic at his garage, and it's actually he who insists on seducing her, while naturally her protests are not enough. There is a circus involved also, which appears towards the end, with a real bombshell for a female director, Dolores Reed, who brings some real titbits of sequences to the film. She even tries to seduce Cleo Moore's lover, which of course infuriates Cleo Moore who while drinking gives the whole plot away - there always seems to be a lot of drinking in Hugo Haas' films, which adds to their charm and comic touch, although Haas never reaches the height of the great jokes of Hitchcock. Still, Hugo Haas is brilliant in his own way, writing his own scripts and producing his own films and giving them a solid direction, and their plots are always ingenious. So don't miss any detail of this very carefully blended drink of a wondrous film thriller.