User reviews

The always great Joseph Cotton plays a bank employee who steals a lot of cash but begins to have second thoughts. You find yourself rooting for Cotton's character hoping that he will not be caught. Theresa Wright, Jonathan Hale and Walter Sande round out a fine cast. I first saw this film in 1952, the year it was released and, even as a 12 year old boy, the movie has stuck in my mind all this years. How many Hollywood efforts can you say that about?

This is a medium budgeted, tight little drama starring Joseph Cotten in one of the favorite roles of film noir culture, that of a respectable member of society who is discontented and bored, which leads to trouble. It is also one of those rare films with featured elements which are implausible if not impossible yet still holds one's interest to the end without one saying, "Yeah, right." and changing the channel. In this case Cotton plays a long time employee of a bank who day dreams of how easy it would be to embezzle one million dollars from his bank over a weekend.

Cotten has a likable everyman quality about him, so as he decides one day to make his day dream become a reality it's easy for the audience to identify with him. Yes, he's breaking the law and by all the moral codes of society he is wrong to do so. Yet we can't help but root for him because of the intelligence and audacity that his character displays.

This film is quite suspenseful at times and tightly paced by director Andrew Stone. It's a short little 85 minute feature and doesn't waste any time in telling it's simple but involving tale, with all the unexpected complications that arise threatening to scuttle Cotten and his plans for a new life with all that loot.

Since The Steel Trap was made in the '50s when the Hollywood production code dictated that no film character can attempt such a plan without paying a price for it, I was pleasantly surprised at the film's resolution, which I found to be both unexpected and satisfying.

One more thing for film noir buffs. Visually The Steel Trap has none of the chiaroscuro lighting effects that we so love about '40s noirs. In fact, the visuals of this film are the least of its virtues. The emphasis is upon plot development and, increasingly as the film progresses, its pacing. The film also reunites Cotten with his Shadow of a Doubt co-star, Teresa Wright. Wright gives a lovely performance (the moral conscience of the film) as Cotten's wife who initially hasn't got a clue as to her husband's plans. Her character eventually turns out to play an important role in the flow of the narrative.

Joseph Cotten was a fine actor, capable of playing a smooth talking charming psychopath (Shadow of a Doubt) as well as personifying an everyman, as an earnest, slightly awkward leading man (The Third Man). He also gets my nomination as the actor who possibly appeared in more outstanding Hollywood productions during the 1940s than any other.

While The Steel Trap hardly rates among Cotten's best films, it does have something in common with the actor, that of being good, largely neglected and underrated.

In the Film-Noir Canon this is there because of the Everyman abandoning the safe confines of Conservative Capitalism, that for the little guy is an oh so slow Corporate climb, and the unrelenting tension it embodies, more than the style or unfolding of implicit irony.

It has a rather pale look with mostly unremarkable Camera set-ups, although there are a couple that are noteworthy, and it all takes place in bright lights illuminating the plight of the Anti-Hero's inability to hide from the deed done and the escape route he has set in motion.

It is extremely suspenseful and the screws are forever tightening as one scene to the next lays out never ending barricades and pitfalls. The Movie can be at times quite breathtaking and never fails to pull the Viewer along with unsuspecting twist and turns.

The ending is up for debate, for it can be quite surprising and at the same time some might say a cop out. It does manage to separate this one from quintessential Noir and land it somewhere in the Film-Noir netherworld, just not at the forefront.

The Steel Trap is a tense nail biter of a movie. A simple story and a great cast make you hope the good man gone wrong gets away with his crime. But this is film noir and nothing goes the way it should. Just saw this gem at the AFI/Silver during the DC Noir festival. The Film Noir Foundation showed the only known copy of this lost film - a homemade DVD. This film deserves finding and/or restoring. The locations are great, a large old bank, various airports, a constellation aircraft, and vintage New Orleans. The cast, Joseph Cotten and Theresa Wright bring to life what could have been dull takes. The home scenes drop down a bit but some of the best shots are in the bank vault. Like most crimes - what seems like a sure thing is anything but. Taking the cash is the easy part. What you do next is the hard part. By the end of this film you will be clenching your hands and trying to remember to breathe. A simple story, a great cast, and a film noir lost gem. I hope the Film Noir Foundation can find a print or gets enough donations to restore the homemade DVD. This is worth the effort.

The assistant manager at a Los Angeles bank steals nearly $1M from the vault and tries to get himself and his wife out of the country before the missing money is discovered. Written and directed by Andrew L. Stone, a compact filmmaker who parlayed suspense on the cheap, does his usual quick, efficient work, and Joseph Cotten is perfectly cast as the 'everyman' plotting nefarious business. With his anxious, pinched face, darting eyes and steely, monotone voice, Cotten nearly rivals his work in 1942's "Shadow of a Doubt", in which he co-starred with Teresa Wright (who plays his unsuspecting wife here). Cotten's grave voice-over isn't really effective (it's a filmmaker's short-cut, and a clichéd one), but there's plenty of tension to be had in the scenario. **1/2 from ****

Like the previous commentator, it has been many years since viewing this film. In fact, I first saw this film while visiting Denver, Colorado in November of 1971--wow!--that's 35 years ago! I had just arrived in a downtown Denver hotel and was getting ready to take an afternoon nap after the long flight from New Orleans. I decided to turn on the TV and "The Steel Trap" was playing. After watching the action for only a few minutes, I found myself totally engrossed in the plot.

The film made a lasting impression on me, especially the New Orleans setting, as I was living there at the time. The scenes were all familiar places and very nostalgic, bringing to mind the New Orleans I remembered from my childhood of the early 1950's. All of the New Orleans characters and extras spoke in an authentic New Orleanean manner and had the "look" and style of locals.

The dramatic tension in the film was almost unbearable, with Joseph Cotton performing a masterful ex post facto narration. This added to the suspense of the film. It certainly prevented me from taking my planned nap. After the film ended, there was no chance of going to sleep--I was totally awake and mentally back in "the big easy."

I've never been able to locate the film for viewing again, but hope that Netflix or Blockbuster will one day have it available. Apparently, TCM doesn't have it in their portfolio. If you ever get a chance to watch this film, don't miss it--a real noir thriller!

I wish this movie was on VHS or DVD so I could enjoy it again. It is a nail-biting thriller, that doesn't resort to mindless violence to generate suspense. The acting is great, the plot unique and the action practically non-stop.

Written and directed by the more than capable Andrew L. Stone, this has been described by some as a 'noir' but actually contains none of the components associated with that particular genre. It is essentially a 'heist' movie in which Joseph Cotten's assistant bank manager is the complete antithesis of the criminal mastermind whilst his wife, played by Teresa Wright, is the film's moral compass. As with all films of its type the robbery itself goes pretty well to plan but the getaway proves more than somewhat problematic, to say the least.

Despite the innate implausibilty of the plot, the editing by Otto Ludwig maintains the momentum throughout whilst Dimitri Tiomkin's instantly recognisable chords and orchestration underline the tension.

An earlier reviewer has expressed the view that some might find it awkward watching Cotten and Wright playing husband and wife having previously seen them in 'Shadow of a Doubt' as uncle and niece, to which I would respond: It's called ACTING!

I have no idea what happened to Joseph Cotten's career once the '50s hit, but he seemed to descend into B movies fairly rapidly. 1952's "The Steel Trap" is one, and co-stars his niece from "Shadow of a Doubt," Teresa Wright, now blond, as his wife.

In this ridiculous film, the main character, Jim Osbourne (Cotten), a man with a wife, child, home, and 11-year career with a bank, decides to steal money from the bank vault and move with his family to a country with no extradition. He researches this and decides on Brazil. He also decides to steal the money on a weekend so he can skip the country before the bank opens on Monday. Then begins the frantic preparations: trying to get passports, arranging for a sitter, and getting on a plane.

Through it all, Osbourne acts frantic bordering on hysteria, drawing attention to himself everywhere he goes. When he misses the Brazilian consulate and can't get his passport and his wife's, he smashes the glass in the door to gain entry. Then he starts bribing people so he can get on a plane that will ultimately take him to Brazil via New Orleans. And gee, he didn't think a suitcase weighing 115 pounds would raise a few eyebrows?

Well, here's what I want to know. After 11 years, what was the rush? Okay, they were going to start opening the bank on Saturdays. Surely there would have been a Saturday due to a holiday, perhaps, where the bank would not have been open. He could have leisurely obtained passports, plane tickets, etc. Or, if he'd realized the change weeks earlier - I make this point because the writer still could have built in a tremendous amount of suspense and things going wrong, but it would have been based on a stronger premise that made the character look less foolish.

Both Cotten and Wright were much better than this.

While the parents are out of town, a coworker and his wife visit the house, where Osbourne's mother-in-law is babysitting (he planned to send for her once he and his wife were in Brazil). They bring cherries, explaining that they had been given too many, and they wanted to give some of them away lest they spoil. They hand the mother-in-law a basket that would have taken a normal family of three or four six months to get through and made that poor little girl sick to her stomach - chronically. Fortunately, the film ended before I suffered the same fate.

A nail-biter from beginning to end. Bank officer Osborne (Cotten) yields to temptation and steals a million bucks from his bank. Except to complete the theft, he's got to get to Rio before the bank opens on Monday. That means he's got to get a passport and make plane connections with only moments to spare. Thanks to him, I left a bucket of sweat on my living room couch.

So why hasn't this little sleeper been repeated more often on TV. It sure as heck merits an audience, even among today's digital addicts. It's an expertly observed, tightly written, fluidly paced little thriller. Director Stone was known for insisting on location staging. His insistence here pays off with an everyday realism that heightens the petty annoyances threatening to undo Osborne's daring scheme.

So the banker's got a million in cash in that suitcase to get out of the country. But then life's minor delays and hang-ups intrude, becoming major headaches for both him and us. Just listen to the airline stewardess cackle while we wait and wait to take off, or watch the booking agent fumble around while we squirm and squirm. The filming is like a microscope held up to everyday irritants that suddenly assume gigantic proportions, while a routine escape path turns into a nail-biting obstacle course. Poor Osborne, he'll be in fat city if he doesn't have a nervous breakdown first.

Cotten's fine as the regular Joe looking for a way out of his workday routine. Ditto Wright, as Osborne's compliant wife, the light slowly coming on that this isn't just an ordinary business trip. Also, director Stone managed a number of compact thrillers during this period, including The Night Holds Terror (1955) and Blueprint for Murder (1953). Too bad his skills aren't more widely recognized. Note here how neatly his screenplay completes Osborne's journey with that routine walk home— cast now in a reaffirming light.

I expect I'll catch the film again even though I know how it turns out. But for darn sure, I'll still keep my sweat bucket handy.

THE STEEL TRAP is a reminder of how even the best laid plans can go completely awry if the plan involves a getaway on an airplane to a foreign country. That's what our hero discovers after stealing a million dollars from the bank that employs him, and why his wife is so suspicious about the amount of hysteria he undergoes while dealing with one obstacle after another at the airport.

Although suspenseful, there's never a buildup of Cotten's character to indicate why he would risk stealing a million bucks and put his own life (including a wife and child) in such jeopardy. It's a by-the-numbers sort of thriller--throw in enough obstacles and keep the audience guessing as to how it will all pan out.

Teresa Wright, with blonde hair, is attractive and appealing enough as the wife but it's really a thankless role in a film where all the attention is on Joseph Cotten's character. His acting is fine, but not good enough to save the film from being a minor thriller rather than a first-rate one.

Andrew Stone's direction is taut, but the film has a low-budget look and the flat lighting is no help, resembling the sort seen in the average '50s teleplays.

A couple of the bank scenes during the heist are well-staged, but not enough to raise this above the level of a routine suspense film.

Exemplary citizen, respected assistant bank manager and stickler for precision, Joseph Cotten is the consummate professional......until he discovers just how easy it would be....to rob his own bank. What begins as a ticklish, playful notion, quickly escalates into an excruciating brain itch, an all consuming obsession. Finally evolving into a deft, meticulously planned heist.

Where the movie falters, is the preposterous premise of Cotten having to fly to Rio de Janeiro at ultra short notice, at his own expense, to strike a vital deal, which isn't even HIS department. More and more glitches arise as Cotten goes through the gears from deceitful, to desperate, to demented: Paying taxi drivers astronomical tips (probably more than the value of the car!) in return for lightning quick trips to the airport, breaking into the Brazilian consulate's office to retrieve his passport, attempting to coerce a commercial pilot to fly through adverse weather and finally screaming "SHUT UP!" at two cheery, chirpy flight attendants.

It seems like an eternity before devoted wife, Teresa Wright figures out that something is wrong. Similarly, airline staff are sluggish in responding to Cotten's extreme, erratic, queue jumping behaviour, including the conspicuous absence of hand luggage - just one abnormally heavy case. Despite his increasing histrionics, he fails to generate any real on screen presence.

The above, however is largely compensated for by the brisk pace at which the movie ticks along and the frequently fortuitous manner in which the couple contrive to overcome every setback, just stopping short of legging it across the tarmac in pursuit of an already taxiing jet.

The neat symmetry of the plot notwithstanding, 'The Steel Trap', might easily be dismissed as a fantastically absurd shemozzle. Maybe so.....but as fantastically absurd shemozzles go, it remains an undeniably entertaining, surprisingly satisfying achievement. Far superior to the U. K.'s dismal partial remake, 'The Big Chance' (1957). Well done Bert Friedlob Productions for a film, which despite its flaws, exhibits some real mettle.

I was surprised to see how many other reviewers rooted for Joseph Cotten's character to "get away with it" in this film. We found him completely unsympathetic, possibly because while a bank assistant manager's job at a large bank in Los Angeles (pre-climate-disaster-ridden and crime-ridden Southern California!) in 1952 may not be glamorous and may even be dull, it was a stable, middle class career with a secure future for someone who describes himself in the movie as a man who started as an assistant teller and who could ultimately look forward to eventually becoming the bank manager.

Add to that a glowingly gorgeous middle-aged Teresa Wright as his happy, stay-at-home wife, throw in a chipper and sweet young daughter, and my husband and I were thinking,"What in the world does he have to be unsatisfied with here?" George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life" sacrificed for his family and community through many years before he became fed up with his life. I saw no evidence that Cotten's character ever broke a sweat to help another person.

The other problem is that, if you are planning a big score, you take some time to PLAN IT, which this knucklehead failed to do.

I'll grant you that the last 20 minutes were much more interesting than we had any reason to expect. So, go ahead and watch the film, and even cheer for him if you must.

Had absolutely no doubt that 1952's 'The Steel Trap' would be an at least good film. Absolutely loved the concept, the type that is quite up my street when it comes to films and when done well the result is great. Have liked both Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright in other films and knew from Alfred Hitchcock's classic 'Shadow of a Doubt' that they worked very well together and that Cotten could play the sort of role he plays here with no problem.

'The Steel Trap' didn't disappoint at all. Completely agree with all of the users that have written of the film favourably and don't have an awful lot to add to their very well expressed reasoning. It may not quite be a classic and it is not quite on the same level as, briefly comparing, 'Shadow of a Doubt', but 'Steel Trap' is a fine example of a very good film with many brilliant elements. One of the better films seen for the first time this week on the whole in a mixed bunch quality-wise.

By all means the film isn't perfect. To me, it was too dimly lit in spots.

While unexpected the ending was a bit too abrupt and didn't quite gel with the rest of the film. It is true that there are some ridiculous spots, but to me it was not near as improbable as has been made out by some.

Any of those not so convincing spots are more than compensated and outweighed the literally non-stop high level of suspense, with the heisting being especially well staged and suitably panic inducing. The story is a very clever one and never felt too obvious or too convoluted with plenty of diverting and surprising turns. The script is tautly structured and has plenty of intriguing and entertaining lines. The direction is always efficient and stops the film from becoming dull or routine.

Despite the lighting being on the dim side, the photography is suitably stylish and has atmosphere. Dmitri Tiomkin's score is a mix of cheerful (in spots) and ominous with typically lush orchestration. Both Cotten and Wright are excellent. Especially Cotten, who balances fraught intensity and easy going likeability adeptly, one oddly roots for him but is freaked out by him at the same time. Wright's role is less interesting but she is appealing in it, the two scintillate together. The supporting cast are all fine but not quite on par with the leads.

Concluding, very good. 8/10

I saw this movie once, only once. I was in Junior High School, some 45 years or so ago. For the longest time, I could not remember the title, but found it in the IMDb listings. As far as myself or my other movie buff friends know, this has not been aired since that era.

Yet, it still brings forth vivid memories of a great story, a strong cast giving a fine performance in a truly tense and thrilling crime nail biter. So why is it absent from the television/video scene?

In the credits, it is listed as a 20th Century-Fox film. That means that it is now property of News Corporation, Ruppert Murdoch's conglomerate. It is just sitting in a vault collecting dust and going undiscovered by a whole new generation of film devotees.

Mr. Rupert Murdoch, are you reading this? Come on, get with it man!! Get this gem out of hiding and on TV, VHS and DVD. C'mon, Rup! Share the Wealth, already! already!!

UPDATE: Dateline, Chicago, January 3, 2012. After at least 50 years, we just viewed the picture on Turner Classic Movies. It was not as good as we remembered it as a 12 year old in the 7th grade; it is even better. Probably just a case of understanding "adult situations" much better.

Incidentally, we owe Mr. Rupert Murdoch an apology; for while it was originally a 20th Century-Fox release (since then having become part of Murdoch's News Corporation conglomerate), it was an independent production; now being distributed to television by Warner Brothers.

A noir-ish bank heist/escape film that is more nervous than it is suspenseful, I cannot help but feel that writer/director Andrew Stone told the wrong story. Stone spends too much time on the crime itself and the subsequent fleeing to Rio via New Orleans and in so doing he asks the audience to buy such ludicrous stuff as the thief's not being immediately incarcerated once a guard catches him, red handed, breaking into the friggin Brazilian consulate! Or that the thief's wife possesses such oceanic depths of cluelessness that even when her husband is nabbed at the New Orleans airport, carrying a suitcase full of cash, she still has doubts about his guilt. A much more effective tale, in my opinion, would have been the thief, afraid of losing his wife once she found out what he did, confessing while in the Big Easy and then trying desperately to return the stolen money, amid various complications thrown in his path. Instead, the admission of guilt and attempt at redemption is stuffed into the last fifteen minutes and is, like everything else in this film, most unsatisfying.

Give it a generous C plus, though, for "Shadow Of A Doubt"'s Uncle Charlie and his niece reborn as a postwar, Los Angeles, middle class couple. Indeed, joseph Cotten is so good that it took awhile before his jumpiness and twitchiness got on my nerves. And this film earned a lot of good will by its un necessary, and all the more wonderful for that, location shooting in The Crescent City.