Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

good back-story, and good acting

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Cleo Moore and Hugo Haas starred in a terrific and very original film, "The Other Woman". Well, three years later they're back and starring in "Hit and Run" and they are joined in the leads by Vince Edwards (of "Ben Casey" fame).Gus (Hugo Haas) Owns a garage and asks a young and pretty woman, Julie (Cleo Moore), to marry him. Soon after they marry, their employee, Frank (Vince Edwards) begins making passes at the missus. She never encourages him...but she also doesn't tell her husband. Frank takes that to mean she loves him and has come up with a scheme to kill the old man and then dismantle to car for scrap so there is no evidence! She is horrified when she is in the car with Frank and Frank runs over Gus! She had no idea about Frank's plans...but when the police later notify her of his death, she says nothing about Frank's actions. Clearly she has very mixed thoughts about what has happened.So far, so good. While the plot isn't wholly original (with films like "Therese Raquin" and "The Postman Always Rings Twice"), it's not bad and interesting. The problem is what comes next....it's really, really nuts. A new plot involving an identical twin brother that no one knew about comes into play...and the film basically goes into the toilet. Rarely have I seen a film where the second half simply goes 100% wrong like this one!

****SPOILERS**** The usually ending up with the short end of the stick Hugo Haas ends up on top here for once. Haas plays a duel role as twin brothers Gus & David Hilmer who ends up confusing his wife Julie, Cleo Moore, and her boyfriend Gus's ace car mechanic Frank played by a pre Ben Casey Vince Edwards to which of the two twin brothers he is and which one they ended up murdering! The confusion sets in when Gus is run down and killed by Frank with a terrified, in not knowing what her boyfriend was up to, Cleo in the passenger seat.With Cleo expected to end up with Gus's gas station as well as house and some $50,000.00 in cash up pops his twin brother David looking for a piece of the action or of Gus' estate! Gus who treated his brother David like dirt when he was behind bars in the joint-San Quentin- for forgery had a change of mind when David was released from prison and sought out his help. Sadly for David Gus, before he could thank him, was killed in a hit & run by Frank whom just the day before he put David into his will! When David showed up at the lawyers office his resemblance, even though he was Gus' twin, to his dead brother was astonishing! To the point that he not only looked like a carbon copy of his dead brother Gus but has all of his quirky mannerisms as well! It slowly became obvious to Cleo that it was David that her boyfriend Frank ran down and that her husband Gus took over his identity! With David messing up Frank's plans he now decides to leave Cleo for circus lion tamer Miranda, Dolores Reed, who developed a crush on him and checks out with her to Mexico. That's as far away from the very unstable Cleo who's about to crack under the pressure and spill the beans, in him killing her husband, on him to the police!****SPOILERS**** Never a dull moment her with director and star Hugo Haas keeping everyone on there toes to who of the two, or even both of them, brothers he supposed to be playing here in the movie. This drives Cleo almost over the edge in hitting the bottle and getting herself smashed while Frank, who was only using her, tries to check out of town with Miranda as well as from the police! ***MAJOR SPOILER*** David who in fact was the supposedly murdered Gus played it both cool as well as a bit stupid which got both Cleo and Frank to drop their guard and expose themselves as David's, not his, murderers. And he did it so skillfully that even at the very last moment of the movie until he took off his shirt, and revealed a scare on his cheat, no one in the audience as well as the cast in the movie was quit sure who he was!

Cleo Moore was one of the sexiest blonde starlets of the 1950's but sadly this 1957 release was her swan song. She had starred in around ten films and was well known by the public but I guess there was just too many beautiful blondes around at the time. She's the best thing in this standard little film noir of the beautiful young wife, middle-aged husband, and the young hunk who comes between them. Looking fantastic as a platinum blonde, Cleo gives an excellent performance and her love scenes with hunky Vince Edwards are fairly torrid. Director-costar Haas seems a little too sympathetic to his own character for my liking, a boisterous auto repair shop owner who woos option-less showgirl Moore. Never a particularly good director (to say the least), Haas notably wastes the potential in one scene in the wrecked car "graveyard" beside his repair shop which manages an eerie touch nevertheless. The movie quite low budget but that proves to be an asset in capturing the angst of low-income 50's America.