L'aventure sauvage

I saw this movie one late night on TV in the early 70's while living in NYC. The image of Eve and Jean La Bete discovering themselves set against the Northwest wilderness never left me. Over the years this movie kept creeping back into my head like few other movies have. It is not the best produced movie ever made, but it tells a story that is unique, simple and compelling. Reed brings a "bull in the china-shop" masculinity to the character Jean La Bete that at first conflicts with, but then blends with the very subtle beauty and inner strength of Eve, played perfectly and silently by Rita Tushingham. (Tushingham also plays the adult daughter of Laura and Dr. Zhivago in Dr. Zhivago.) I didn't see "The Trap" again until a few years ago when I came across a cheap used copy online. This is a very unusual love story. "The Trap" might catch you like it did me years ago.

Like many other reviewers I remember this film from the late 60's on late night tv. It was the era of kung fu films and blaxploitation movies which we all watched avidly. Films like 'the Trap' held no interest for us but it held our attention and fascination in an absorbing way. The slowly changing relationship between the trapper and his mute wife/slave transfixed us in its humanity and fragility. The story centres around these two mismatched ndividuals, both handicapped in their own way as they struggle to make a life together in the canadian wilderness. From initial brutality to tolerance to interdependence and finally the eventual outcome at the end. Both Reed and Tushingham give strong performances here, especially Oliver. When he wasnt getting soaked he could turn out some amazing work.Sadly he is no longer with us and is no doubt propping up another bar somewhere in shakespeares heaven.He will be missed. I hope they repeat this on tv or release it on video again soon.It is a truly outstanding work.

--- mild spoilers ---

this British adventure film tells a heart-wrenching love story by combining a classic erotic fantasy with a realistic depiction of the hard life in the 19th century Canadian wilderness. The show-piece of the film is the wolf attack. It is brilliantly filmed, with the camera moving on and on through the dark snow-covered wood, while the starving beasts relentlessly try to snap at the wounded trapper. Actually, these are no wolfs but German shepherds, but the whole thing was so damn frightening that I completely forgot that this film is forty years old. Oliver Reed and Rita Tushingham are two great actors and make a wonderful couple in this film. I loved the last line delivered by Reed to Tushingham.

Only one thing I have to criticize: the two roguish native Americans are played by western actors with wigs. Looks very cheap by modern standards.

"The Trap" seems to be a lost classic. I had never heard or read of it until it aired on German television last week under the title "Wie ein Schrei I'm Wind". Then I found out that both of my parents had seen it decades ago and were so impressed by it that they never forgot it.

I fell in love with Oliver Reed when I was a mere a slip of a girl. That's what this movie is -- a teenage fantasy. Performances are great for the era and the script. Surprisingly NOT overdone, though it's a melodrama to beat all melodramas. Pretty neat that most of the action is centered around only two people - scenes with others in them are only at the beginning and end - and the two carry it off quite well - the action holds. Rita Tushingham did a fine job without ever saying a word. That's acting. Tough to write "dialogue" for Reed to get the story out - and his own back story - when the person he's talking to never speaks to move the narrative along. The scriptwriters handled it pretty well during the time they spend alone in the wild. Oliver Reed, hairy and covered in skins, was as masculine a hunk of man needing domestication as any young girl could ask for. Too bad he made lots of bad movie choices (perhaps because that's what he was offered -- being a difficult actor), because he was delightfully bad-boy gorgeous and had incredible chemistry on camera. (Sighhhh)

I've seen this movie only twice. Once when it first hit commercial television, and again about 15 years ago, and it is unforgettable. It's great to see I'm not alone in my appreciation. I think it's a classic . . . . a "must see" for anyone who considers themselves a cinefile.

The two leads, Tushingham and Reed, are at the height of their powers and both give brilliant performances. (no hyperbole) The story is well conceived, well developed and executed to perfection. It holds together. The movie is a little gem.

Considering when it was made, the budget it was made under, and the politics of the time, (you couldn't find "real" Native American's in the actors union), it is an extraordinary work.

To criticize this movie for using an Italian "Indian" is like dismissing "Saving Private Ryan" because of a half-dozen glaring continuity errors. It means you've missed the point. Close your mind and open your heart. You will be rewarded for watching it, if in no other way than to witness, deeply and completely, the archetypes of what the masculine and feminine essences are in the universe.

Tushingham (Eve) IS the frightened rabbit that Reed (Jean) says she is. She has been torn from civilization to witness all manner of horrors of life in the wilderness. And what can be said of Reeds LaBete? Even those who laud this actors genius underestimate him.

While we're on the subject, how is it possible that during the Acadamy Awards Ceremony, when Reed's last movie "Gladiator" won BEST PICTURE, that he was overlooked when they did their eulogizing segment on those important figures who had passed away during the previous year? Conspicuous and tragic was his omission from that roster.

Do yourself a favor. See "The Trap". And then . . . . see it again.

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