The last movie I saw on TCM, was this afternoon:
“PITFALL” ( 1948 ) Dick Powell - Lizabeth Scott - Jane Wyatt - Raymond Burr - Directed by Andre deToth
Sympathetic adulterer..................Can she pick ‘em?............... It’s not you, it’s him......................Creepy
“O what a tangled web we weave,
When first we...buy Lizabeth Scott a drink.”
I like this taut tense quiet drama and how it plays out. What happens outside his marriage comes crashing in to his suburban home like a tsunami.
DICK POWELL plays
John Forbes, your average, postwar, 9-to-5, Everyman. He’s a hero to his son, a good provider to his wife, but his life is in a rut. Then Lizabeth Scott falls into his lap.
Always watching...he's just a guy who can't take "NO"
RAYMOND BURR is
Mac the private investigator on Lizabeth Scott’s case and he’s developed a hankering for her, to put it mildly. Basically he’s a one-track minded, terminator, obsessed with Scott beyond all rhyme and reason. He’s having that relationship with her all by himself. Scott wants no part of this hulking brute. Any girl would take her ten foot pole and vault as far away from him as possible. Visiting her in the shop wear she models clothes, Mac has free rein to sit and watch her model for him as long as his cash holds out. All perfectly legal. All perfectly “eeeewww.”
I like Powell as Forbes. Yes, lying by omission is still lying. He gets caught up in a web of his own making, but I feel sorry for him. It’s not that he doesn’t love his wife. He’s frustrated, bored with the routine and predictability of his own life. He didn't look for it; doesn't initiate it. Yes, he could have said no...but c'mon. He takes inventory of the items
Mona Stevens (
LIZABETH SCOTT ) has received from her ex-boyfriend, who’s serving time for embezzling funds to keep Mona in clover. As Forbes visits Mona, he really
is strictly business. He warms up to her when he sees she’s not a bad egg; nor is she a femme fatale, in the strictest sense of the word. She just got caught up in something herself:
He was just too much in love with me. He wanted to do thngs for me and he didn’t have the money. So he went out and got some...I liked him mostly because he was nice to me. Very few men are. That means a lot.” - ( RULE #1 - TELL THE HERO YOUR TALE OF WOE )
I know some feel Lizabeth Scott is stiff and glacial. But I like her, and find her warm and friendly here. She uses her husky, smoky voice to good advantage here. She’s not being calculating. Her vulnerability draws you in. John stops being officious and drops his defenses:
I guess i’m a little out of practice. I never quoted anything but statistics. I’m a little unsure of myself whenever I crawl out of my briefcase.”
Who’s drawing out whom?
The beginning - getting to know you.
I think Mona offers John a life raft out of his sea of boredom. She lets him have a ride on her ill-gotten gains of a boat, and he gets a brief glimpse of how the other half lives and a respite from his ordinary existence. Maybe she thinks John's a nice guy, and if he lets her keep the boat...he could keep her too. Nahhhh, I'm a romantic not a cynic. I think they recognize the loneliness in each other and bond. She invites him to a home-cooked meal where one thing leads to another...
GUILT - THE GREAT MOTIVATOR
Sue knows something's bothering Johnny, but he can't tell her.
Maybe moguls got
JANE WYATT confused with Jane Wyman due the similarity of their last names so Wyatt didn’t get all the meaty roles Wyman was offered. But she’s a good solid actress ( I love her voice ) and shows that here in “Pitfall” as
Sue Forbes, John’s wife. Sue is pretty and competent and has a sense of humor; maybe it’s that she humors her husband as wives do. She seems like a true partner in that marriage; someone who can go to a PTA meeting or country club, and is probably a good bridge partner. The Wife usually is a thankless role in movies, but not in Wyatt’s capable hands. And as Sue, she’s not too busy for her husband...which gets a lot of movie wives in trouble. Yes he strays, but we can see there’s nothing really wrong with Sue. ( He’s bored with himself. Hmmm...what would Mary Haines' mother tell him? )
John has to break it off with Mona...especially after she finds out he is married. Yeah, he neglects to mention
that bit of information.
Ending what should not have begun.
JOHN: “I’ve done something I’m terribly ashamed of. I’d like to make it up to you.”
MONA: “Well if you think I’m going to stand in competition with a wife and child...even I’ve got more sense than that.”
JOHN: “What’s going to happen to you?”
MONA: “What do you care, really. Honestly Johnny, aren’t you a little relieved to get out of it this easily. This is the set up Johnny. This is the kind of girl you’ve always dreamed about. I’m going to let you off without an angle. I could be nasty. But I’m not going to be.”
JOHN: “Why?”
MONA: “I don’t know. But I’m not going to be...what happens to men like you, Johnny? If I had a nice home like you did Johnny, I wouldn’t take a chance with it for anything in the world.”
JOHN: “I’ll do anything I can.”
MONA: “Will you really? Alright. Then go home. Stay there.”
JOHN: “Alright. If that’s the way you want it.”
MONA: “If that’s the way I want it? Have you got any other ideas?”
It’s a clean break. A sad one. Hurtful. And John just may get away “scott”-free. He’s learned his lesson and is now back in the fold, content with what he has at home. Uhmmm...not so fast.
BLACKMAIL MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS
The conflict between Mack and John is an interesting dynamic and Forbes is in a pickle. They
both like Mona. One offers his protection, the other - his obsession. Now if we follow the letter of the law, Forbes has no right to Mona; he’s married. And from 1947 to 1962, there was probably an Order of Protection against any characters Burr played who attended the Laird Cregar School of Big Bad Guys. If pounding John to a pulp won’t keep him away from Mona, Mac decides to create a human heat-seeking missile of revenge by planting Iago-type taunts in the mind of Mona’s ex, Smiley, (
Byron Barr. ) And Smiley heads straight to John’s house.
CHICKENS COME HOME TO ROOST
Things come to a head which forces John to
finally tell the truth. The guy keeps getting drawn in to Mona's damsel-in-distress siren call. John in concert with Mona to protect his family from knowing about their affair, unleashes dire consequences. John's conscience is killing him, so he confesses to his wife. Sue's response:
Conscience? You make it sound like a dirty word. You worrying about your filthy little conscience...you’re not going to the police. You lied once. It came to you easily enough then. You’ve got to lie now. I mean this Johnny, if you drag this family through the dirt I’ll never forgive you!”
The movie ends on a realistic bittersweet note. Not everything's tied up in a neat M-G-M bow. Where would Smiley be if he hadn't embezzled? Where would Mac be if he took "NO" for an answer? Where would Mona be if she didn't precipitate this affair? And John...it all lies at his feet. What you try to sweep under the rug may turn around and bite you on the ankles.
Besides, Ann Doran as the Secretary looks like she's a little sweet on John Forbes...