Pitfall (1948)

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is a moderately successful noir film that has some snappy dialog and good performances by Dick Powel, Raymond Burr and Jane Wyatt. But Elizabeth Scott is atrocious. She is given one of the most meaty roles of her career and she gives one of the most wooden and passionless performances I have ever seen by a female actor. There were so many female actors of the time who could have been selected for this role and given much better performances. The standout in the film is Raymond Burr. He is brilliant and manages to act rings around Scott when they are in any scenes together. IT is a well made film and well directed. But Scott is not up to the job. It would be nice if it was remade with a better actor in the starring role.

Insurance Fraud Investigator Dick Powell (John) is fed up with his life. He has a perfect wife in Jane Wyatt (Sue) and a son, a good job and everything is just the same - and it's stale. It's doing his head in. One day he arrives at the office and takes over a case from private investigator Raymond Burr (MacDonald) which involves retrieving goods from Lizabeth Scott (Mona). Her boyfriend Byron Barr (Smiley) bought her gifts with the proceeds of an insurance scam and he is currently serving time in jail for it. Still, Powell must do his job and take back anything bought with the proceeds of the crime. Just one problem, Lizabeth Scott is a babe and he falls in love with her. As does the thuggish Raymond Burr. That's all three male characters in love with the same girl and the boyfriend is due out of prison shortly.It's an ok film that doesn't quite make it into the definite solid good category but it's worth a watch and keeping onto for a future viewing. The cast are good apart from Barr who isn't. He overacts. The film has a message of forgiveness and puts forward the reality that everything in life just doesn't get neatly resolved. It scores a point for that and this gives Wyatt her best moments.What do you do if you are fed up with the way your life is going? Don't do what Powell does. Just stick with that well-paid job and crack on. Then you can dream of a lovely retirement. Err...........on second thoughts.......break free...go for it......! This film hints that things may work out ok even if you screw up.

Though many people deem this late 40s film a "film noir" it has only a passing resemblance to the classic noir films. There is a basically good guy (Dick Powell) who is led astray by a woman (Liz Scott) but she's not exactly the femme fatale we expect. There is a bad guy (Raymund Burr) but he is alone and there is not the usual assorted character actors comprising his gang. The star is an insurance agent, but the beat is not the naked city but the bright and shiny suburbs. Even worse, there is no rain, no back streets, very few night shots, and at the end, the hero doesn't get what one comes to expect from a classic film noir. Film noir it ain't, at least not in the classic sense.Director Andre de Toth (1913-2002) is best known for "House of Wax" and his westerns, although he did do a classic film noir ("Crime Wave" in 1954) and many of his films did have noir elements, probably as a result of his European film background. The film does have a film noir cinematographer, Harry J. Wild (1901-61) who shot such classics as "Murder My Sweet" (1944) and "Cornered" (1945), both of which starred Powell.If you're looking for classic film noir, look elsewhere.

It's strange to think that Dick Powell, who was in many light comedies over the years and movies that you could take anyone age 2 to 82 to, was a fairly good fit for film noir. Was he Robert Mitchum or Sterling Hayden? No (but then who is), and he needed to be right for the project. He somehow made for an entertaining and surprisingly fun to watch Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, and in Pitfall he takes on the role of an insurance investigator and does his own bit the same way Fred MacMurray did his in Double Indemnity. Like that film there is 'hanky panky' and deceit and murder, but there are different stakes and the tone is less constantly jokey and more based in a subdued, almost sad reality.Powell's insurance man is just down about his life in general, not that he doesn't love his wife and son but he has to go to the same job every day and do the same dreary things. There's some snappy dialog (though delivered in a more casual tone, think more Alan Rickman if he was American), and it's mostly in the first twenty minutes as we get the set up: John Forbes has to look at the money situation of Miss Mona Stevens (Lizbeth Scott in a voice that basically breathes smoke, if that makes sense), and the two sort of hit it off (it helps when one of them, guess who, has a boat that she's trying not to tell anyone about). The rub comes with two things: a private eye who was once a cop (Raymond Burr cuts an imposing figure, mostly it's the broad shoulders I think) who is really hot for Mona and won't take no too easily for an answer; also Mona's man, who caused a lot of grief for Mona through his own embezzlement and who is in jail... for only so much longer.This is noir that's more about the personal stakes - some of the characters are criminals, or do things like trespassing or beating someone up or (of course) brandishing a gun that he (or she) may use - and it comes down to an affair. Of course we don't see that much of it, it's the 1940's (I'm almost surprised they even allowed a shot of Powell leaving Scott's house at night, I wonder what he was doing there, hmm), and yet it's one of those wonderful, down-ward spiral kind of stories dealing with an honest, adult question of morality. Though this is the 40's and it's an "all ages" kind of flick, slightly dated by its view of comic books in a couple of scenes (yes, that happens), it's really a mature look at infidelity and the lies we tell ourselves in bad situations.And while I don't know if it would be on the top shelf of moody noirs like Double Indemnity, it doesn't mean that it doesn't cut its own impression: Scott is am impressive actress for this role, and what I liked is that she may seem like a femme fatale, but she's more down to earth, less intentionally cunning. She can handle herself if she has to, but she's more vulnerable than I'm used to seeing. Her character's in the thick of it too, and when a scene like when Burr comes to, ahem, pay her a visit at her job (she wears clothes to show off to prospective buyers, and he comes to, well, look at her) it's intense but in a slower, more menacing way. You feel trapped with Scott as she has to stand and show off to him, and it's an example of De Toth being a good director as far as timing for every little beat.It may lead to some places you might expect - it's the Hayes code era so, you know, some people will get theirs by proxy of the Code - but for the most part this delivers on being a drama first and thriller second, and Powell is able to play that conflict as he just walks around on the street or sits there in bed by his wife extremely well. It's less about the criminal underworld element than the s*** that the "Average Joe" can get himself in, with some (dark) humor sprinkled realistically throughout.