Movie Review
The Trap (1959)
Screen: Chase in the California Desert; 'The Trap' in Premiere at the Capitol Widmark and Lee J. Cobb Head Cast
THE Southern California desert, which has been the blasted heath of many an exhausting Western, is the locale of "The Trap," a highly Technicolored melodrama that opened at the Capitol yesterday. And its tale of a conscience-smitten shyster nabbing a contemporary fugitive badman and bringing him in, against grueling opposition, is in the Western vein.
It is not in the high tradition. After a promising start, in which the shyster transforms from a mouthpiece for the fugitive into a self-appointed deputy for his sheriff father, who gets killed, it settles down rather flatly into an ordinary "chase," with the shyster attempting to get the badman by automobile to Barstow, 120 miles away.
True, his opposition on this journey is not only the badman's pals but also his own accompanying brother, who is an undependable rat. And this makes for vexing complications. It is tough enough for the fellow, as it is, with the badman's pals setting up roadblocks and flying around overhead in a scouting plane, without having to worry about that brother shooting him in the back. But the brother's pretty wife is some solace. Sure, she gets mixed up in it, too.
However, for all its pattern plotting and its heavy reliance on the guns, it comes off a fairly taut picture in the outdoor action frame. Norman Panama, who, with Melvin Frank, produced it, directed it and helped to write the script, has seen to it that there's no waste motion and that the pressure is on all the time. The pressure may not all be too logical, especially that of the henchmen's lurking out there in the dark, but again Mr. Panama has seen to it that you have little time to think.
He has also shot most of it outdoors, on the desert, where the scenery is good, and he has got some nice menacing performances from his experienced cast.
Richard Widmark snarls grimly as the good guy, Lee J. Cobb plays the badman mordantly and Earl Holliman snivels and twitches, and gulps booze avidly as the brother-rat. The unhappy wife of the latter is represented a bit too majestically by Tina Louise, and the sheriff father of Mr. Widmark and Mr. Holliman is played ramrod stiffly by Carl Benton Reid.
No, "The Trap," which is a Paramount picture, doesn't waste too much fragrance on the desert air, but it gives off a strong mingled odor of gunsmoke and agonized sweat.
The Cast
THE TRAP, screen play by Richard Alan Simmons and Norman Panama; directed by Mr. Panama; produced by Mr. Panama and Melvin Frank and Richard Widmark's Heath Productions for Paramount Pictures. At the Capitol. Broadway and Fiftieth Street. Running time: eighty-four minutes.
Ralph Anderson . . . . . Richard Widmark
Victor Massonetti . . . . . Lee J. Cobb
Linda Anderson . . . . . Tina Louise
Tippy Anderson . . . . . Earl Holliman
Sheriff Anderson . . . . . Carl Benton Reid
Davis . . . . . Lorne Green
Mellon . . . . . Peter Baldwin
"Police officer" . . . . . Charles Wassil
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9F04E7D6153DE53BBC4151DFB7668382649EDE
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