Pitfall (1948)

DIRECTOR: Andre de Toth
WRITER: Jay Dratler, Karl Kamb
PHOTOGRAPHY: Harry J. Wild
CAST: Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr
COUNTRY: USA
GENRE: Noir
MISCELLANY: 86m; bw

Insurance investigator John Forbes is a wise guy who surrounds himself with people who find his stream of cynical commentary endearing, so his complaints about suburban drudgery are laughed off as part of the routine. In the midst of this restlessness, he meets Mona Stevens and falls for her. Meanwhile, Mack McDonald, an ex-cop who considers Forbes competition, starts stalking the couple, and Mona's boyfriend Bill Smiley is about to be let out of jail.

When I rented "Pitfall," I was afraid I had seen it already. Even the most banal noirs entertain me when the mood is right, but they tend to overlap. "Pitfall" would be one of those enjoyable but predictable and ultimately forgettable noirs were it not for a few distinguishing features, the most startling being the subtlety of its female characters.

In this tale of infidelity the wife is not painted as a shrew driving her husband to cheat, nor is she a shining saint to be contrasted with the ignoble mistress. The other woman, played by an apologetically luminous Lizabeth Scott, does not thrive on stealing husbands; she does not scheme or cling. And if anyone can be accused of seduction it's Forbes, who fails to disclose his marital status. Forbes is an unpleasant hero, only marginally less odious than the villain Mack. A few awkward scenes even set me wondering whether de Toth was going for something deeper with Mack than the stock stalker psychopath, like maybe he existed only as Forbes' doppelganger. Eventually the plot took such a turn I dismissed that notion and stopped trying to find deeper meaning in the occasional bursts of overdone acting and overwrought music.

"Pitall," in 1948, also was on the cutting edge of capturing the dissatisfaction simmering under the surface of suburban life. Forbes has the cookie-cutter home, the respectable job, a son that idolizes him and a wife who dotes on him. When he proposes throwing it all away, his wife takes it as a joke. That was the day he met Stevens and set himself on a course leading to murder.
— Becky