by Mark Gabrish Conlan • Copyright © 2014 by Mark Gabrish Conlan • All rights reserved
Charles and I ran the 1948 movie Pitfall (there seems to be some confusion about the title:
the novel by Jay Dratler on which it was based was called The Pitfall, and that’s how the film is listed in The
Film Noir Encyclopedia and on the Turner
Classic Movies schedule, but the actual title credit reads just Pitfall and that’s how it’s listed on imdb.com), a
production by Regal Films (a plushy crown appears as a backdrop to the credits,
which might lead one to expect a medieval-set swashbuckler instead of a contemporary
film noir), released through
United Artists. It was directed by André de Toth (the director who later was
famously assigned to helm Warner Bros.’ first 3-D movie, House of Wax, even though he only had one eye and therefore
couldn’t see the 3-D effects himself) from a script by Karl Kamb based on
Dratler’s novel. It’s an example of the subset of noirs that also includes the 1945 film The
Woman in the Window (directed by Fritz Lang
from a script by Nunnally Johnson based on a novel called Once Off
Guard by J. H. Wallis) and the 1949 The
Reckless Moment (directed by Max Ophuls
from a script by Henry Garson and Robert Soderberg based on a novel called The
Blank Wall by Elizabeth Sanxay Holding, and
equally powerfully remade in 2001 as The Deep End) in which the central protagonist is a man (or, in The
Reckless Moment and The Deep End, a woman) living an ordinary suburban lifestyle who
is suddenly and without much warning thrust in the noir world. The central character of Pitfall is John Forbes (Dick Powell), an insurance agent
who’s married to his college sweetheart Sue (Jane Wyatt) and has a
pre-pubescent kid named Tommy (Jimmy Hunt). But he laments the loss of his
dreams, and in particular the fact that instead of building a boat and sailing
around the world with his wife he’s stuck in a mid-level job as an agent for
the Olympic Mutual Insurance Company (the very clunkiness of its corporate name
becomes an element in the movie symbolizing the way John feels stuck in a
boring lifestyle that offers him nothing but the ability to support his
family). I couldn’t help but note the irony that in 1937, when he was still
Dick Powell 1.0: Boy Crooner instead of Dick Powell 2.0: Noir Hero, Powell made Gold Diggers of 1937, which also cast him as an insurance agent. Anyway,
the plot of this one kicks off when John Forbes is told to investigate Mona
Stevens (Lizabeth Scott, second-billed), whose boyfriend Bill Smiley (the
“other” Byron Barr — the one who didn’t change his name to Gig Young and become a bigger star than this one)
embezzled to buy her an engagement ring, a boat and some furs and dresses. He
was caught and sentenced to a year in prison, and the insurance company is on
the hook for $10,000 and is attempting to recover it by seizing the presents
Smiley bought Mona and selling them.
They first send J. B. “Mac” MacDonald
(Raymond Burr at his oiliest), an ex-cop turned private detective the company
frequently works with, who immediately forms an intense crush on Mona which is
totally unreciprocated: she compares him to an animal and can’t stand him.
Forbes takes over the case himself and also immediately falls for Mona, who takes him for a ride
on the boat the company was trying to seize, takes him to cocktail lounges in
the afternoon and ultimately — at least it’s hinted in that veiled way enforced
on filmmakers by the Production Code — takes him to bed. Alas, Forbes is caught
leaving Mona’s apartment in the wee hours by Mac, who tails him to his home,
threatens him, beats him up and tries to blackmail him by saying he’ll tell
Mrs. Forbes about her husband’s affair if Mr. Forbes persists in seeing “his”
girl. John returns to his family but is filled with guilt and angst that Mac’s antics have only ramped up, and instead
of breaking it to Mrs. Forbes, Mac chooses an even more insidious form of
revenge. He starts visiting Bill Smiley in prison and dropping veiled hints
that Mona’s been cheating on him while he’s been in stir, and when Smiley is
paroled it’s Mac who meets him, takes him drinking, gives him a gun and tells
him to visit the Forbes home (whose address he helpfully provides) and … The
situation resolves itself when, tricked into it by Mac, Smiley tries to kill
John but John kills him instead, then is cleared by police on the grounds that
the homicide was justifiable since Smiley did intend to kill him; while Mona shoots Mac and is
arrested — and at the end it’s not certain whether Mac will live or die,
meaning it’s unknown whether the charge against Mona will be murder or merely
attempted murder. John and Mona pass each other in the country jail — John
being released and Mona being imprisoned — and John asks for the chance to talk
to her and is told that would not be allowed. Later there’s a tag scene in
which John and his wife are in a car and they decide John will ask to be
transferred to another city where his company has an office so they won’t have
to live down the scandal in the same town.
One interesting thing about Pitfall is that, though it qualifies as film noir thematically, very little of it is visually
noir: much of it takes place in daylight
and the Los Angeles streets are just that — actual streets, not studio backlots
or “outdoor” interiors. Real-life businesses like the May Company and Vons are
clearly recognizable — reflecting the increasing portability of film equipment
that by the 1960’s would render the whole idea of a backlot obsolete. Charles
also noted that the story seemed contrived, more an excuse for certain
sequences, and it was almost as much a soap opera as a noir. He said the film Murder, My Sweet (Powell’s first noir, based on Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My
Lovely) did a much better job than Pitfall in creating the sense of a world in which these
sorts of things could actually happen — and I said, “Yes, and that’s why
Raymond Chandler’s books are still in print and Jay Dratler’s aren’t.” Some of Pitfall did indeed seem arbitrarily plotted — its producers
seemed to be aware that the public for a noir film with Dick Powell in 1948 would want either to
see him get beaten up or beat up someone else, so they included scenes in which
he did both (Powell beats up Raymond Burr as part of his revenge against Burr
for having beaten him up somewhat
earlier) — but I found it quite powerful and engaging even though some of its
most interesting possibilities weren’t really exploited. There’s a powerful
scene in which John Forbes, attempting either to get his family out of the
house or at least do the best he can to protect them from being knocked off by
the murderous ex-con who’s after him, is confronted by his son, who’s had a
nightmare that someone was trying to break into their home. John decides that
his son has merely dreamed this from the lurid and violent comic books he reads
(this anticipates the major Congressional attack on comic books by at least
five years), and I was a bit surprised that Tommy hadn’t seen Smiley trying to
break into their home and his “dream” was really him witnessing, though not
understanding, some of the danger his dad was in, which would have made the
scene more powerful and given it some dramatic point.
Still, I quite liked Pitfall (better than Charles did), largely because of the
surprisingly complicated characterizations created for Lizabeth Scott and
Raymond Burr. Mona is a model by profession (she has a portfolio of photos that
I suspect were actual head shots Lizabeth Scott had had done to send to casting
directors), so she’s used to making a living off her looks, and she comes off
as neither an innocent heroine nor a femme fatale but simply a woman living on the edge (financially)
and making her way through the world the best she can. There’s real pathos when
she laments that the first man who seemed to love her enough to buy her an
engagement ring had stolen the money to pay for it, and when Forbes finally tells
her he’s married there’s a sort of philosophical acceptance in her attitude, a
“damnit, I should have known, all
the good ones are taken” attitude. Raymond Burr’s character is also quite
remarkable; as much as romantic obsession is a staple of the noir genre,
I can’t offhand think of a major noir from the classic period that has a major character who’s an
out-and-out stalker. (In Farewell, My Lovely/Murder, My Sweet Moose Malloy is Velma’s ex-lover and the whole plot
line involving him is driven by how well she covered her tracks after she
“married up,” to the point where he doesn’t even know who or where she is until
the very end.) The most chilling scene in Pitfall is one in which Mac corners Mona at a fashion show
she’s working and insists that she show him dress after dress, which he says he
has the money to buy for “my girl, who’s just about your size,” and there’s
nothing she can do to get away from his nauseating attentions because he is,
after all, a customer and “the
customer is always right.” And if it seems that there’s no reason for his
actions because he’s just making himself more repulsive to her instead of
attracting her, that’s been a question raised about some real-life stalking
cases as well!
