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.

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.

There are a number of ways you can look at this movie, but for me it's a film about a nice girl who can't catch a break with guys. The underrated Lizabeth Scott is effective as a nice girl who's too sexy for her own good; she made me think of the famous Jessica Rabbit line, "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

Unfortunately, the men in Lizabeth's life are a psycho stalker, beautifully played with understated menace by Raymond Burr, a cheater having a mid-life crisis, and a jailbird. And my impression is every one of them would blame Lizabeth for their own failings.

Taken with the film's other major female character, who has man problems of her own, this movie thinks little of men (unless they are very young or very old), and pretty highly of women.

For me the standout performances were Burr and Scott, but the funny thing about this movie is that, outside of Burr, no one here at IMDb seems to agree much about who's good and who isn't.

While noir films are associated with the detective genre, what makes something noir is its exploration of the darkness within its characters souls and the awful things people are capable of, and this movie takes that on very effectively. It's not a great movie, but it keeps you interested.

It's still funny to think that Powell was originally a song and dance man. He does the hard boiled noir character fairly well. Straight laced, stiff but a sucker for a femme fatale. Burr is sufficiently creepy - not perhaps to the extreme of Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal but sufficient nonetheless. It's often interesting to see what kind of careers many actors played before they became famous or landed their most well known roles. This is one of those roles for him. I don't find Lizabeth Scott very believable as a model. She has a funny speech pattern and looks like a heavy smoker. Of course, smoking was considered glamorous in those days. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy her acting in the right roles. But a seductress she is not.

The story works as a basic noir plot. When I read that Jay Dratler was the author I understood why I liked it. He is the author of the original story of Call Northside 777 and Laura which are both well written.

It feels Jane Wyatt is still trying to play Margaret Anderson. Maybe that's what the director wanted but her acting seems out of place. She does well as the faithful, sweet wife. But it just doesn't fit.

Unfortunately the film quality of the version I watched was not too good. It was either washed out or overexposed. That\s not the fault of the film makers but it did effect my further enjoyment of the film. It would be worth restoring.

All film reviews are opinions and you know what they say about opinions...

Overall I liked the film and I'm glad I discovered it. Thank you again TCM!