The Fire-Trap

Norman Foster is an insurance investigator. He's courting Evalyn Knapp in one of those high-speed movie romances. His boss, Sidney Blackmer, is in an arson scheme with Oscar Apfel.

It's a standard-looking Poverty Row B movie, varied somewhat by Mr.Apfel being Miss Knapp's uncle instead of her father, and by a fox-hunting sequence in the middle. The actors do good jobs, and the script has a couple of well-run fire sequences, the former in which Foster saves Apfel's dog from burning to death and the latter suggesting the Triangle Fire. There's nothing particularly wrong with this movie, but the extensive use of stock footage makes it clear this was not an expensive movie for Larry Darmour to produce.

The director, Burt Lynwood, is a bit of a mystery. He directed five movies in 1935, and that is all that can be found out about him by a Google search. He does a decent job with good actors and an okay script.

Aside from some bad acting from Evalyn Knapp at the beginning of the picture, "The Fire-Trap" is an otherwise decent little B-movie. Like most Bs, it does have a cast of lesser-known actors, lower production values and a running time of about an hour. It's not at all a distinguished film or one you should rush out to see but it is an amiable time-passer.

The film begins with Betty (Knapp) behaving like an obnoxious, spoiled rich girl--which is pretty much her character. However, after she falls for Bill (Norman Foster) she becomes a softer and more believable character. Bill is a fire investigator and neither he nor Betty realize that her father is planning on deliberately burning down his own business and claiming the insurance. Can this be stopped in time? Yeah,...whatever.

The best scenes are near the end with the fire--the worst, clearly, at the beginning. The bottom line is that if you do choose to see this film, it is only fair and the DVD copy from Alpha Video is awfully bad. So, overall, I really cannot see a lot of compelling reasons to see this film.