Strange Fascination (Hugo Haas, 1952)

I thought it'd be a revenge story. A young woman has her dance performance disrupted by a concert pianist (Hugo Haas) who comes into the bar hoping to order food. She sets out to get even. She goes to HIS performance, comes in late, noisily rustles her program, talks to her friend and pretends to cough. It doesn't bother him but members of the audience tell her to knock it off and she soon finds herself enthralled by his music. They start seeing each other. She hides out in his apartment to avoid her dance partner and soon they are married. 

It turns out that concert pianists don't make that much money. He damages his own career when he leaves a gig to make sure his wife isn't with another man. A victim of his own jealousy and general sexism, he won't let his wife get a job although she could make pretty good money as a dancer or a clothing model.

Produced, directed, written by and starring Czech director Hugo Haas who came to the U.S. to escape the Nazis. In the movie, his character moves to the U.S. because a wealthy woman sponsors him thinking he'll hit it big there. Turned out not to be that great, but I don't know what Europe was like at that point.

According to Wikipedia:

Haas's first American film was bankrolled out of his own pocket for $85,000. The financial success of Pickup led to the creation of the independent Hugo Haas Productions, which he used to produce 12 of his 14 American films from 1951 to 1959. Independent studios were not atypical at this time, but Haas' operating procedures were. He financed his own films, and the budgets were minuscule compared to most Hollywood fare. While his films' budgets usually ran from $80,000 to $100,000, the average cost for a Hollywood picture in 1955 was $1.5 million. His ventures were risky; he did not secure distribution deals with larger studios until after the movies were made, sometimes delaying their release for months or even years. While Hollywood studios practiced division of labor, with well defined and distinct roles for workers, Haas was described as a "one-man production team," having financed, produced, written, and directed all of his Hugo Hass productions, and having acted in all but one

Insuring your hands for $100,000 isn't like buying fire insurance. You can't defraud the company without doing something horrible to yourself.

Available on the Criterion channel.