Le piège

Dick Powell is the insurance investigator. Raymond Burr is the private eye who does contract work for the insurance company. Lizabeth Scott is the girlfriend of the guy who stole a bunch of loot.

Naturally, every guy falls in love with Scott. Director Andre De Toth draws out a believably warm, human quality in her performance. Powell's character is so bored stiff at home with super-sweet wife Jane Wyatt that he chases the first dame who bats an eyelash at him. His wry delivery of some very clever lines seems fresh to this day. Burr's character is a nasty creep who probably murders h00kers in his spare time so his stalking Scott is completely believable. Once they mix in the old boyfriend, who gets sprung from jail in time for the Third Act, things get murder-y.

To be honest, I expected a different character to die. Or at least get arrested. In any event, the wrong character got the comeuppance. It may have had something to do with the Hayes Office. Would be fun to see a remake.

Andre De Toth's Pitfall opens in the shaky sanctuary of post-war domestic bliss. Jane Wyatt cracks eggs into a cast-iron skillet, to be served to her insurance-claims adjuster husband Dick Powell and their tousle-haired young son; the cozy breakfast nook where they exchange morning what-if banter looks out upon a vista of the New California of subdivisions and revolving credit and sunny possibilities yet to be realized. But, as Wyatt drives Powell into downtown Los Angeles (two-car families still being around the corner), he grouses absently about his routine job and clockwork schedule before giving her a perfunctory peck on the cheek. The canker has invaded the rose. As he later confesses, he feels he's in a rut `six feet deep,' and yearns for freedom – adventure. He gets more than he bargained for.

Waiting for him in his office is `Gruesome,' private investigator Raymond Burr, who's done some legwork concerning a convicted felon who has defrauded the company. The felon (Byron Barr) squandered most of his ill-gained money showering his girlfriend (Lizabeth Scott) with furs, an engagement ring and even a little speedboat. Burr, in the course of his sleazy sleuthing, has taken quite an obsessive fancy to her, but Powell warns him off, saying he'll wrap the case up himself.

At first Scott dismisses Powell as just `a little man with a briefcase,' an assessment that tallies too well with his own worst self-image. But to no one's surprise, in this climate of Pacific air and marital dissatisfaction, he ends up taking his own fancy to her, one that turns out to be mutual. They tear around the harbor in her boat, then fritter away the rest of the afternoon in a dim cocktail lounge. He doesn't get back to hearth and home ‘till the wee small hours.

One night when his son is awakened by nightmares, Powell lectures him: `Take only good pictures and have only good dreams.' It's a case of do what I say, not what I do. By veering off from the straight and narrow, Powell has set into motion a chain of baleful events. The vindictive Burr assaults him outside his garage. Scott discovers that Powell's been hiding his life as a married father. Ex-cop Burr starts visiting Barr in stir, sowing seeds of jealousy and plans for revenge. Events converge one dreadful night with an unplanned pair of killings that leave the quick, arguably, worse off than the dead....

Jay Dratler's script (from his own novel) shows a progressive streak in dealing with the short and unpredictable fuses of controlling, potentially violent males – stalkers. The script also serves the assembled cast well. True, there's not much to be done with Wyatt, with her cap-sleeved house-dresses and finishing-school elocution, but she's more plausible than she would be two years later as a highly unlikely femme fatale in The Man Who Cheated Himself. Here, she's the distaff side of those male dictators, a wife whose ideals of suburban decorum are chiseled into cold marble (she's a faint forerunner of Joan Crawford's Harriet Craig).

But Powell gets to tap deeply into his key emotion, snappish discontent, and lets it deepen into something close to small-time tragedy. Scott, always an iconic presence but an actress with limits, finds a comfortable part as a bewildered and vulnerable victim of the men who come into her life, bidden and unbidden. Burr, billed fourth (after Wyatt!), possibly fares best. Much in demand in the late ‘40s as one of the creepiest heavies, he earned that demand by providing extra (and maybe unasked-for) dimensions to the thugs he played. Like the giant Fafner in Das Rheingold, he lets a bit of yearning, of desperation, show under all his intimidating bulk (and in sheer avoirdupois, it's one of his biggest roles).

De Toth, better remembered for his westerns and 3-D horror pix like House of Wax, made, in Pitfall, one of the more distinctive titles of the noir cycle. Not often mentioned in top-ten lists, even those of black-and-white crime films of the post-war era, it has the effrontery to situate deceit and duplicity and betrayal where it surely ought not to belong – not in road houses or tenement flats but right at the heart of a storybook American family (it's one of the more subversive films of the era).. Yes, there are lapses, chief among which is a score that keeps trying to crack corny little jokes. But in the denouement – far from unleashing a hideous storm of terror, De Toth opts for cold detachment – he casts a chill that lingers still.

a bit like cape fear problem with the film--the answer to the problem ISN'T that difficult

Dick Powell plays an insurance investigator named John Forbes. His life is very routine and he makes a point (perhaps too much of a point) of beginning the film complaining about how routine his life is. Soon, he meets a woman on a case, Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott) and they begin seeing each other--which is a problem since Forbes is married. However, before it goes very far, she breaks it off with him when she learns he's married.

This is not the end to it, though. An insane private investigator (Raymond Burr) is infatuated with Mona and MUST have her. And, when he follows her and sees her with Forbes, this maniac decides to threaten to expose Forbes unless she agrees to be his girl. When this doesn't work, he beats Forbes senseless. And, when that doesn't seem to work, he goes to Mona's old boyfriend and gets the man worked up--so worked up that the old boyfriend comes gunning for Forbes. What's next? See this dark little film to see.

So is this film worth seeing? Yes, though it's far from perfect. As far as the good goes, Raymond Burr is wonderful and is really in his element playing this creepy and sociopathic jerk. He was great in this sort of role and played it in several other films, such as "The Blue Gardenia". Also, the basic story idea is good. However, the film is flawed--seriously flawed. This is because the entire film is based on characters who repeatedly make stupid choices. Any semi-sane man would have told their wife about what had happened or at least they would have gone to the police after they were assaulted and threatened. Many times he COULD have stopped the threats, attacks and eventual catastrophe that occurs at the end--a weakness in an otherwise enjoyable little noir movie. On balance, the good does outweigh the bad.

It's sad it is now 60 years after this film was released and we still don't have this available on DVD. You even have to pay big bucks to find a used VHS copy. It's "sad" because it is a fine film noir and would make an excellent addition to anyone's noir collection. So many film noirs are now on disc, where is this one??!!

I found you can't go wrong with Dick Powell in a film noir, and Lisabeth Scott certainly ranks among the all-time femme fatales in the genre's history. Add an unlikely pair of actors like Jane Wyatt and Raymond Burr, and Director Andre de Toth and you really have an interesting "old" crime story. "Crime Wave" and "Ramrod," two other fairly unknown-but-excellent hard-bitten noirs were also done by de Toth.

I am always amazed how Powell made such a tremendous career switch from Busby Berkely crooner and romantic to the hard-boiled detective or whatever (a restless insurance agent in here, believe it or not) while Scott seems to have always owned those "loser dame" roles. Between those two and the menacing Burr, who always was that until his Perry Mason TV days, I really enjoying watching this trio.

The film also featured Harry Wild's fine noir photography. Wild was the cinematographer on at least a half dozen film noirs, beginning with "Murder My Sweet" in the beginning of the period, so he knew what he was doing.

In Los Angeles, the insurance executive John Forbes (Dick Powell) is a family man bored with his routine suburban life with his wife Sue (Jane Wyatt) and their son Tommy (Jimmy Hunt). When a man called Bill Smiley (Byron Barr) is arrested for embezzlement, Forbes hires the private investigator J.B. MacDonald (Raymond Burr) to find where the money is. MacDonald discovers that Smiley spent part of the money giving gifts to his girlfriend Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott) and becomes obsessed with her. Forbes goes to Mona's apartment to collect the gifts and he does not tell that he is married. Soon they have a brief love affair until Mona learns that his married with child. Meanwhile MacDonald unsuccessfully tries to seduce Mona that becomes friend of Forbes. When Smiley is near to be released, MacDonald poisons him against Forbes and on the day that Smiley is discharge, he gives a gun to him. What will happen to Forbes and Smiley?

"Pitfall" is a magnificent film-noir with a realistic story and well- developed characters. The direction and performances are top-notch and the cast gives credibility to the plot with excellent lines. Dick Powell and Jane Wyatt perform a mature couple that expects to supersede their problem. The gorgeous and sexy Lizabeth Scott is perfect in the role of a seductive femme-fatale. But Raymond Burr steals the show in the role of a despicable and Machiavellian villain. The open end is another plus in this great film. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Caminho da Tentação" ("Way to Temptation")