Reviewed by JONATHAN LEWIS:         

   

STRANGE FASCINATION. Columbia Pictures, 1952. Cleo Moore, Hugo Haas, Mona Barrie, Rick Vallin, Karen Sharpe . Written, directed and produced by Hugo Haas.

   This one really isn’t noir, but it’s got noir-ish features, I guess in the sense that it has an impending sense of doom, a femme fatale (to some degree), and a portrait of a man on a downward spiral.

   The fatalistic plot follows Central European concert pianist Paul Marvan (Hugo Haas) as he makes his way to America, falls madly in love with a nightclub dancer half his age (Cleo Moore), and then proceeds to make bad decision after bad decision, ultimately ruining both his marriage and his professional life. It’s a decent enough work to be sure, but the plot is a little too simple for its own good.

   A lower budget auteurist work if there ever was one, Strange Fascination has Czech-Jewish filmmaker Hugo Haas’s imprint all over it. Not only does he star in this moody drama film, he wrote, directed, and produced it. So it’s safe to say that everything in the film is his work and his alone.

   To his credit, his portrayal of Paul Marvan is spot-on; Haas disappears completely into the role and imbues it with energy. He’s compulsively watchable. But otherwise, Strange Fascination is a somewhat languid affair, never quite able to deliver the punches it so desperately needs.