Deathtrap Blu-ray Review
The Play Isn't the Thing
Reviewed by Michael Reuben, November 30, 2012
As a novelist, Ira Levin was a success whose bestsellers included
Rosemary's Baby and
The
Stepford Wives. As a playwright, however, he usually struck out. But on the one occasion when
Levin hit the theatrical jackpot, he
really hit it. Levin's play
Deathtrap opened on Broadway in
February 1978 and played for over four years, setting records that remain unbroken to this day.
Even the release of this film directed by master craftsman Sidney Lumet didn't dent ticket sales
at the Music Box Theatre (which is the same Broadway theater featured in the film).
As with many successful feats of authorship, Levin started with what he knew.
Deathtrap is
about a playwright (indeed, two of them) struggling to write a commercially successful
play—specifically, a "one-set, five-character, two-act play", which is a format that is relatively
cheap to produce and therefore easy to shop to potential investors. Not by coincidence,
Deathtrap
itself is just such a play; it used a single set, featured five characters and divided neatly into two
acts with a stunning curtain close between them to ensure that patrons would return to their seats
after intermission.
Prolific screenwriter Jay Presson Allen (
Cabaret,
Marnie) adapted Levin's script for the screen,
retaining much of his original dialogue and wisely leaving most of the action where Levin had set
it, in the established playwright's country home (relocated from Westport, Connecticut to
Easthampton on Long Island). Under Lumet's direction, the result never feels stagebound, but
theatricality is inherent in the material.
Deathtrap is a thriller, but it's also a comedy peopled by
outsized, eccentric personalities. They're
supposed to be outlandish, and it's essential that a
viewer approach the film with that expectation.
Deathtrap is one of the first Blu-ray releases by the Warner Archive Collection (WAC), which
produces limited quantities on demand of catalog titles for which the studio does not anticipate
sufficient sales to justify a wide release. The WAC releases are available either directly from
Warner or from retailers who have chosen to offer them for resale.
To paraphrase
Deathtrap's trailer, to say too much would be a crime. The film has several major
developments that anyone who hasn't seen it wouldn't want spoiled. (If you've already seen
either the film or the play, it's still fun to watch these moments coming.)
The film opens with playwright Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine) cowering in the back of the Music
Box Theatre watching his latest play flop on opening night. Before the curtain even falls, Sidney
has retired to his favorite theater district bar to be consoled by the bartender, Burt (reliable
character actor Tony DiBenedetto), but it gets even worse when the critics weigh in. Several
theater critics of the era appear as themselves giving harsh reviews on late-night TV, and they
show no mercy. Early the next morning, Sidney stumbles drunkenly into his Easthampton
country home and informs his wife, Myra (Dyan Cannon), that his career is finished.
As if to rub salt in the wound, Sidney has received a manuscript from a former student in a play
writing seminar. The student, Clifford Anderson (Christopher Reeve, at the height of his
Superman fame), wants his erstwhile teacher to be the first pair of eyes to peruse his new
manuscript. He's written a play called (you guessed it!)
Deathtrap, and it's a stunner: tightly
plotted with sharply written dialogue, five characters, one set, two acts, murders and clever
twists. This is the very thing that Sidney has been trying and failing to write for the last few
years. "Even a gifted director couldn't hurt it!" he moans to Myra.
If only Sidney had written
Deathtrap. Maybe he still can. As Sidney begins mapping out a plan
to murder Clifford and steal his play, Myra first thinks he's joking and then is horrified as it
dawns on her that her beloved husband may have turned homicidal. A high-strung drama queen,
Myra hasn't been well lately, which is why she didn't accompany Sidney to last night's premiere.
Myra's piercing shriek whenever she's startled, which is often, is one of the film's running jokes.
When Clifford arrives at their home, to all appearances thrilled at the invitation and eager to hear
whatever pearls of wisdom Sidney has to offer, Myra's anxiety reaches epic proportions as she
attempts to discern her husband's true intentions. (Dyan Cannon was nominated for a Razzie for
Deathtrap, and it was unfair, since she no doubt gave exactly the performance for which Lumet
asked. For certain kinds of material, he
liked extreme performances.)
Adding to the tension is the presence of a new neighbor, a famous psychic from Holland named
Helga Ten Dorp (Irene Worth), who shares an agent with Sydney and has come to America to
promote her new book. Miss Ten Dorp appears abruptly at the Bruhls' home, announcing that
she feels "pain" in the house. She then proceeds to swan about the place making the kind of
precise but cryptic pronouncements that only occur in murder mysteries. (Seizing a dagger in
Sidney's collection that an actress used to commit a murder in one of his earlier productions, Ten
Dorp declares: "Will be used again by another woman, not
in play, but
because of play.") The
name "Ten Dorp" is an anagram of "portend", and much of what the Dutch psychic tells the
Bruhls is too close to the truth for comfort. But as with most psychics, the crucial facts always
remain shrouded in fog.
The fifth character in the play was Sidney's attorney, Porter Milgrim (Henry Jones), who also
appears in the film in a reduced role, along with additional characters that Allen's expansion of
the script permitted along the way, including Sidney's philistine producer (Joe Silver). But the
main characters remain the Bruhls, Clifford the young author and the nosy clairvoyant with the
strange accent. More than that I cannot say.
Lumet's directing experience included the stage, television and previous stage-to-screen
adaptations, and he knew all the potential pitfalls of taking a play onto celluloid. Quietly and
unobtrusively, he keeps moving the camera and shifting the perspective so that you never feel
like you're watching a group of actors perform dialogue. More often, you feel like you're among
these people, even when they're behaving so strangely that you feel like they come from another
world (which is most of the time).
Deathtrap Blu-ray, Video Quality
According to published comments attributed to Warner's
George
Feltenstein, this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray release of
Deathtrap is based on a new high-definition transfer. It certainly
looks it. All of the meticulous detail in Sidney Bruhl's elaborately precious country home—from
the dainty living room decor, to the museum-like study, to the bedroom beneath the weighty
mechanisms of an endlessly turning old windmill (gee,
that's not unsettling or anything!)—can
be fully appreciated, along with every tiny shift in expression and sideward glance, as Lumet and
cinematographer Andrzej Bartkowiak push in close to observe the faces of Sidney, Myra and
Clifford. During the opening sequence in the city, colors are often cool, even downright chilly.
They warm considerably when Sidney reaches the country—all those brown woods and earth
tones—but the warmth is an illusion. Myra has a greenhouse with ultraviolet grow lights, whose
sickly purple glow seems to expand and contract with the evil intentions of certain players
onscreen (the "pain" that Helga Ten Dorp feels next door). That light is a classic stage effect
discreetly transferred to the movie screen.
The image is so clean that, for a film of this vintage, one suspects a touch of grain removal. I
stress the word "
suspects", because I have no way of knowing. The digital software used by such
top flight post houses as MPI, which is the on-site facility that handles the digital intermediates
for Warner's major productions, is now so sophisticated that visible grain can be reduced without
sacrificing detail. Certainly none of the telltale signs associated with so-called "DNR" are visible
on
Deathtrap. What we get is a smooth, virtually noiseless, film-like image from a source that
has been well-preserved. Black levels are solid, and there is no indication of compression or
other mastering errors. If this is the level of quality we can expect from future WAC releases on
Blu-ray, collectors will be happy indeed.
Deathtrap Blu-ray, Overall Score and Recommendation
The WAC program has made an excellent start with
Deathtrap, a film beloved by its fans and
one that has aged well, although it never achieved anything like the success of Levin's original
stage play. Levin had obviously become thoroughly familiar with the theater milieu that, as
demonstrated by the TV series
Smash, hasn't changed that much in the past thirty years. In
addition to its other virtues,
Deathtrap is a sly parody of the grandiosity that seeps into so many
of that world's inhabitants. Those characters seemed right at home on a Broadway stage, but in a
film they're bound to strike some viewers as wildly over the top. I have always enjoyed watching
Caine, Cannon, Reeve and Worth operate the efficient machinery of Levin's thriller, but
individual mileage may vary. With due warning, highly recommended.
