Pitfall (1948)

Movie
Original title	Pitfall
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1948
length	86 minutes
Rod
Director	André De Toth
script	Karl Kamb
production	Samuel Bischoff
music	Louis Forbes; (Musical Director)
camera	Harry J. Wild
cut	Walter Thompson
occupation
	Dick Powell : John Forbes; Lizabeth Scott : Mona Stevens; Jane Wyatt : Sue Forbes; Raymond Burr : MacDonald; John Litel : District Attorney; Byron Barr : Bill Smiley; Jimmy Hunt : Tommy Forbes; Ann Doran : Maggie; Selmer Jackson : Ed Brawley;

Pitfall is in black and white twisted American film noir from the year 1948 with Dick Powell and Lizabeth Scott in the lead roles.

action

John Forbes, employee of an insurance company, leads a routine and bored life with his wife and son in a middle-class suburb of Los Angeles . The order to confiscate the assets of the imprisoned fraudster Smiley brings him together with his girlfriend, the photo model Mona. Forbes has a brief affair with Mona but returns to his family. The private detective MacDonald, who harasses Mona even though she has rejected him several times, beats Forbes and threatens him with publicizing his infidelity if he is reported. When Mona asks Forbes for help because of MacDonald's intrusiveness, Forbes again beats up the private investigator and announces that they will kill him next time. MacDonald tells Smiley about Forbes and Mona's affair and supplies him with a revolver after his release. The vengeful smiley goes to Forbes' home, but is shot by him while trying to break into the apartment. MacDonald, convinced that Mona is now to himself, wants to force her to travel with him, but Mona shoots him down. Mona is charged with murder, while Forbes remains at liberty for self-defense. He confesses the affair to his wife, who wants to give their marriage a second chance, even if she doesn't know when her emotional wounds will be healed.

background

Pitfall was based on the novel of the same name by Jay Dratler . The film opened in American cinemas on August 24, 1948. It was not performed in Germany .

criticism

“Despite a rather flat script, a not uninteresting clash of moral piece and film noir. Powell […] is saved by a double standard case (Scott pays for her murder, Powell gets away), but the film suggests that things will not be the same in the suburbs. "

- Tom Milne , Time Out Film Guide

Web links

Pitfall in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

↑ Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward (Ed.): Film Noir. An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition. Overlook / Duckworth, New York / Woodstock / London 1992, ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 , pp. 227-228.
↑ "Rather flatly scripted, but in a not uninteresting clash between moral tale and film noir. Powell [...] is rescued by the exercise of a double standard (Scott pays for her murder, Powell gets away with his); but the film still contrives a troubled intimation that things ain't quite what they used to be in suburbia. "- Review in Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999. Penguin, London 1998, p. 700, accessed online February 17 2013.

[1] Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward (Ed.): Film Noir. An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style, Third Edition. Overlook / Duckworth, New York / Woodstock / London 1992, ISBN 978-0-87951-479-2 , pp. 227-228.

[2] "Rather flatly scripted, but in a not uninteresting clash between moral tale and film noir. Powell [...] is rescued by the exercise of a double standard (Scott pays for her murder, Powell gets away with his); but the film still contrives a troubled intimation that things ain't quite what they used to be in suburbia. "- Review in Time Out Film Guide, Seventh Edition 1999. Penguin, London 1998, p. 700, accessed online February 17 2013.