Over-exposed has perhaps a double meaning: the photographs Lila Crane (Cleo Moore) takes in night clubs as well as the skimpy outfits she wears doing it. Cleo Moore is an icon for those who love B movies; she made seven with low-budget director Hugo Haas alone. Columbia Pictures hoped she would be their own Marilyn Monroe and though she dyed her hair blonde she never had good scripts or good directors, though Over-Exposed suggests that she has skill and acting potential, even under the slack direction of Lewis Seiler, whose penultimate movie this is, after working since the twenties on relatively low-budget films in various studios.
The film is unusual for its time, as Lila Crane meets dipsomaniac photographer Max West (Raymond Greenleaf) as he photographs her at the police station when she is picked up as a B-girl. She gets him to teach her photography and she becomes a successful night club and fashion photographer. She meets newspaper reporter Russell Bassett (Richard Crenna) who tries and fails to get her to go with him to Europe as his photographer. When she hits bad times because of a photo that a gossip columnist steals from her and publishes she tries to blackmail a crime boss with an incriminating picture she took. The crime boss kidnaps her and she is rescued by Russ. The central figure of a female entrepreneur in a film of 1956 is rare and, in this case, effectively portrayed by Cleo Moore, even if the ending is somewhat ambiguous.
No comments:
Post a Comment