Director: Andre de Toth
Writers: Jay Dratler, Karl Kamb, William Bowers, Andre de Toth
Photography: Harry J. Wild
Music: Louis Forbes
Editor: Walter Thompson
Cast: Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr, Byron Barr, Ann Doran, Jimmy Hunt, John Litel
Pitfall does not rate even one star in my Halliwell’s film guide (“Modest suspenser, quite efficiently made,” it notes). But elsewhere film critic Andrew Sarris alphabetizes director Andre de Toth into his “Expressive Esoterica” list and specifically calls out Pitfall as one of his most interesting pictures. As a film noir, Pitfall assembles a lot of the basic familiar elements: a woman of undeserved reputation, her jailhouse boyfriend, a cynical insurance agent and the sinister private detective he uses, and an impossibly wholesome family out of midcentury movies and TV, featuring Jane Wyatt who would become more famous as the Mom in Father Knows Best.
Many are primarily fascinated in this movie by Lizabeth Scott, who plays Mona Stevens, the woman of reputation. Scott is a bit of a Hollywood cult figure at this point and it’s not hard to see why. She made sporadic appearances on TV shows like Burke’s Law, but her most famous roles are film noir or adjacent—Dead Reckoning with Humphrey Bogart, Too Late for Tears with Dan Duryea, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers with Barbara Stanwyck, etc. And I like her here too—a calculated woman of mystery, Scott brings a nice girl-next-door way about her while also somehow being sultry and inviting. But what tends to keep me coming back to Pitfall is the strange, unsettling, and simmering relationship between insurance agent John Forbes (Dick Powell) and the detective he throws work to, J.B. MacDonald, or “Mac” (Raymond Burr).
Pitfall does not rate even one star in my Halliwell’s film guide (“Modest suspenser, quite efficiently made,” it notes). But elsewhere film critic Andrew Sarris alphabetizes director Andre de Toth into his “Expressive Esoterica” list and specifically calls out Pitfall as one of his most interesting pictures. As a film noir, Pitfall assembles a lot of the basic familiar elements: a woman of undeserved reputation, her jailhouse boyfriend, a cynical insurance agent and the sinister private detective he uses, and an impossibly wholesome family out of midcentury movies and TV, featuring Jane Wyatt who would become more famous as the Mom in Father Knows Best.
Many are primarily fascinated in this movie by Lizabeth Scott, who plays Mona Stevens, the woman of reputation. Scott is a bit of a Hollywood cult figure at this point and it’s not hard to see why. She made sporadic appearances on TV shows like Burke’s Law, but her most famous roles are film noir or adjacent—Dead Reckoning with Humphrey Bogart, Too Late for Tears with Dan Duryea, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers with Barbara Stanwyck, etc. And I like her here too—a calculated woman of mystery, Scott brings a nice girl-next-door way about her while also somehow being sultry and inviting. But what tends to keep me coming back to Pitfall is the strange, unsettling, and simmering relationship between insurance agent John Forbes (Dick Powell) and the detective he throws work to, J.B. MacDonald, or “Mac” (Raymond Burr).
To be clear, the Powell role particularly is somewhat poorly focused, which may account for why Pitfall tends to be dismissed in some quarters, including by some fans of film noir. Forbes is a family man who’s bored with his life, wisecracking away the days and hours, but a right surly bastard when he’s in a mood, and not particularly a decent man (though I must say I enjoy the gentle but cutting way he mocks his kid). Mac brings out the worst in him. Plus Forbes is not above taking advantage of a lonely woman of reputation. He despises himself for doing it, but oh golly this woman. It’s just too hard not to take advantage of her. She’s right there. It’s depicted as a reasonably healthy relationship as clandestine affairs go—they enjoy boating together in the fresh air—but Forbes never does mention to Mona that he’s married until she discovers it on her own, which naturally brings on the long faces of film noir.
As it happens, Mac is also interested in Mona. In a nice turn of phrase, Mac says Mona is just what he told the doctor to order. And he doesn’t care whether anyone else is interested in her or even whether Mona is interested in him at all, which she’s not. He says, with a perfectly chilling self-confidence, that she’ll get used to him after a while and then everything will be fine. He is the irresistible force in this movie, seeking out his immovable object, moving on her implacably. Mona, of course, is the reason Mac and Forbes come into their conflict with one another. At least Mac is single, but his frightening air of menace keeps him from being sympathetic.
I think it’s important for boomers especially to remember that Raymond Burr was much better at being a scary heavy than in his role more familiar to us now as Perry Mason, TV’s wily plodding defense attorney who never lost a case (or maybe one in more than a hundred episodes?). Burr was perfectly effective in Rear Window, even in long shot viewed through binoculars. He plays Mac perfectly, at first appearing to be some kind of social misfit who’s good at his job. But all the women around him, including Forbes’s secretary, are repulsed by him. We finally see his true nature in full about a third of the way in, when he confronts Forbes and tells him to stay away from Mona.
In true film noir fashion, Forbes deserves this beating, of course, one of the most shocking and effective scenes in the picture. He’s an adulterer, after all. Later, when Forbes knocks Mac around some in another scene, it’s somehow not nearly as convincing, though I think the movie intends us to think so. Mac lives beyond any moral universe or imperative and slowly emerges as a genuine, frightening monster. Formerly a policeman, he’s invulnerable now to legal reprisals. He’s perfectly willing to blackmail or to extort with violence—whatever is easiest. His menace is the menace of zombies or fascism—slow-moving but never stopping.
There’s only one way to stop him and eventually someone manages it, but in a way that exacts the worst fate for everyone we care about in this movie. That includes Forbes’s son Tommy, who is completely ridiculous, because the kid playing him, Jimmy Hunt, seems to be incapable of acting and only shouts his part with abandon. That nightmare scene—nice try, kid. We hope even that ridiculous annoying kid gets the best in the end. Because a lot of people in Pitfall don’t.
As it happens, Mac is also interested in Mona. In a nice turn of phrase, Mac says Mona is just what he told the doctor to order. And he doesn’t care whether anyone else is interested in her or even whether Mona is interested in him at all, which she’s not. He says, with a perfectly chilling self-confidence, that she’ll get used to him after a while and then everything will be fine. He is the irresistible force in this movie, seeking out his immovable object, moving on her implacably. Mona, of course, is the reason Mac and Forbes come into their conflict with one another. At least Mac is single, but his frightening air of menace keeps him from being sympathetic.
I think it’s important for boomers especially to remember that Raymond Burr was much better at being a scary heavy than in his role more familiar to us now as Perry Mason, TV’s wily plodding defense attorney who never lost a case (or maybe one in more than a hundred episodes?). Burr was perfectly effective in Rear Window, even in long shot viewed through binoculars. He plays Mac perfectly, at first appearing to be some kind of social misfit who’s good at his job. But all the women around him, including Forbes’s secretary, are repulsed by him. We finally see his true nature in full about a third of the way in, when he confronts Forbes and tells him to stay away from Mona.
In true film noir fashion, Forbes deserves this beating, of course, one of the most shocking and effective scenes in the picture. He’s an adulterer, after all. Later, when Forbes knocks Mac around some in another scene, it’s somehow not nearly as convincing, though I think the movie intends us to think so. Mac lives beyond any moral universe or imperative and slowly emerges as a genuine, frightening monster. Formerly a policeman, he’s invulnerable now to legal reprisals. He’s perfectly willing to blackmail or to extort with violence—whatever is easiest. His menace is the menace of zombies or fascism—slow-moving but never stopping.
There’s only one way to stop him and eventually someone manages it, but in a way that exacts the worst fate for everyone we care about in this movie. That includes Forbes’s son Tommy, who is completely ridiculous, because the kid playing him, Jimmy Hunt, seems to be incapable of acting and only shouts his part with abandon. That nightmare scene—nice try, kid. We hope even that ridiculous annoying kid gets the best in the end. Because a lot of people in Pitfall don’t.
Nice write up. Underrated noir.
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