NIGHT OF THE QUARTER MOON. MGM, 1959. Also released as Flesh and Flame. Julie London, John Drew Barrymore, Anna Kashfi, Dean Jones, Agnes Moorehead, Nat “King” Cole, James Edwards, Cathy Crosby. Paperback adaption by Franklin Coen (Bantam, 1959). Producer: Albert Zugsmith. Director: Hugo Haas.

   If nobody has ever written a full-length analysis of Hugo Haas’s directorial output, then someone should. He’s known, of course, by a small cult of followers and true believers for such films (lurid dramas) as Pickup (1951), The Girl on the Bridge (1951), Strange Fascination (1952), One Girl’s Confession (1952) and Bait (1954), all variations on a theme.

   That theme being that of middle-aged men or older (often played by Haas himself) being lured into relationships (sexual, of course) with blonde tramps (well-built, of course, and usually played by Cleo Moore), with deadly results.

   This, you may be sure, is the stuff that cults are made of, but even with limited budgets, the films (in my humble opinion) were made with some thought behind them, down to earth, and generally better than better critics than I have considered them to be.

   What could Haas have done with a major studio (MGM) and major money behind him? Well, first of all (deep breath here) Night of the Quarter Moon is not a major disaster, and while it has its faults – quite a few, in fact – there’s enough story line here to provide more than one PhD candidate with a considerable amount of material for more than one dissertation.

   When John Drew Barrymore (a former Korean Conflict prisoner-of war) meets Julie London in Mexico, he doesn’t care that she’s one quarter black (Portuguese-Angolan), but his rich mother (the imperious Agnes Moorehead) back in San Francisco does, when she finds out.

   And equally so do his neighbors, who fear their property values are going to plummet, and who don’t fail to let the newly married couple know about it after they move in.

   Mama, in fact, takes the case to court to get the marriage annulled, while keeping her son under sedation and incommunicado, her contention being that he wasn’t told of his bride’s unfortunate background before the wedding.

   Which leads inexorably to the most overblown (and provocative) portion of the film, an ending that by sheer audacity surely made audiences gasp at the time, and is still very effective now: Julie London’s character must strip in court to show her tan lines, or lack of them.

   Well, OK, but in the context of the movie, it makes sense.

   Julie London, who resembles nothing more than a less full-blown Jane Russell, but not much less, does very well as lady in the case, determined not to let her husband get away from her, and for the right reasons; and John Drew Barrymore, confused by his arrest and subsequent sedation, more than holds his own.

   They make a good couple, mixed-race or not, and if nothing else, the movie might be remembered as a solid romance movie, even without strictly exploitative and over-the-top theatrics Hugo Haas uses to describe the situation they find themselves in, to put it mildly.