Man-Trap Blu-ray Review
Help! This film has fallen and can't get up!
Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, September 14, 2012
The Korean War has often been called America's "forgotten war", but the Korean conflict has made at least tangential
appearances in any number of American films, including such iconic outings as
The Manchurian Candidate.
Probably well down on the ladder from that John Frankenheimer masterpiece is another film that came out in the early
sixties,
Man-Trap, a thriller that dances around issues of post traumatic stress disorder long before that
syndrome had ever really been adequately named or defined, while essaying the story of a returning Korean vet who
finds his life back stateside in shambles. Matt Jameson (Jeffrey Hunter) is a Korean vet who was demobbed after
having become wounded, but what might have been seen as a respite from battle gives rise to some psychological
turmoil, as Matt is ensconced in an unhappy marriage to Nina (Stella Stevens), a woman who is drowning her own
unhappiness in copious amounts of liquor. Matt has eyes for a comely secretary, Liz (Elaine Devry), at the construction
and design firm where
he works, but what might initially seem to be a kitchen sink drama takes a somewhat unexpected turn into heist caper
territory infused with some moderate
noir elements when a buddy of Matt's shows up and suggests a rather
incredible scheme. Vince Biskay (David Janssen) is a
hardscrabble former Marine whose life was saved by Matt in Korea and is now there to return the favor, in a manner of
speaking. Vince is a mover and shaker, albeit perhaps in a slightly shady way, and he has received information about a
gun running scheme that is attempting to hustle millions of dollars into the United States to buy illegal guns for a
corrupt dictatorship. Vince's scheme
is to intercept the money, which he insists will actually be a "good deed", helping to keep weapons out of the hands of
international villains and reaping sizable rewards for Matt and Vince. As
might be expected, things don't exactly go according to plan.
Edmond O'Brien is probably best remembered for his many impressive supporting character role assignments, including
that of the press agent in
The Barefoot Contessa which won him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
O'Brien made some halting attempts to develop into more of a leading man, including in the Western
Denver and Rio Grande
. O'Brien's long career also saw at least a few films that flirted with a quasi-
noir ambience, including
The
Hitch-Hiker and one of the best remembered films in the idiom, the "first person" thriller
D.O.A. But by the
early sixties O'Brien had probably seen the writing on the wall, and while he would continue to perform regularly
(scoring
another Oscar nomination for
Seven Days in May), he also branched out into producing and directing, and
Man-
Trap was the rather lackluster result. (O'Brien directed one other feature film, 1954's
Shield For Murder,
another film which has a number of
noir elements.)
Man-Trap begins with a brief prelude set in a Korea that looks awfully like a Los Angeles beach. Matt is trying to
round up his troops and is told that Vince has not returned from a nearby ridge. When Matt goes to explore, he finds
Vince wounded, surrounded by several dead soldiers. There are two Korean snipers hiding behind a little rise. In a
kind of funny moment, Matt fakes them out by throwing his helmet across the plain, drawing their fire, and then instead
of just shooting them, runs up and dispatches both of them with his bayonet. Matt is obviously a man of action. As he
attempts to get Vince back to safety, though, Matt himself is shot in the head and Vince, seeing his buddy bleeding
badly, promises that if he ever were to hit the jackpot, he'd share half of his loot with Matt.
Fast forward eight years and we find Matt in a major clinch with an attractive woman in a car. It soon becomes
apparent that the woman is not in fact Matt's wife, but is instead the secretary at his job. Liz manages to detach
herself from Matt by asking about Nina—who is Matt's wife. That seems to bring Matt to his marital senses, and he
heads off home to find his housekeeper (the wonderful Virginia Gregg) in a tizzy and his wife completely snookered
upstairs in the bedroom, shooting liquid from a "martini pistol" (as opposed to a "water pistol"). There's some fairly
racy content in this scene (and in quite a few scenes of this film, actually), where some nascent sadomasochistic
elements are lurking just beneath the surface of a supposedly staid
Ozzie and Harriet early sixties residence.
Stevens as Nina fairly bristles with sexual energy, something she uses to great effect throughout the film. When she
tries to contain Matt's sexual rage by saying "you know I bruise easily," the subtext isn't especially subtle, but it's
riveting.
Vince of course soon shows up and enlists Matt in his mad scheme to steal the illicit weapons money, while he also is
making
goo-goo eyes at Nina, who isn't very shy about returning the favor. This of course repeatedly pushes Matt to barely
restrained violence, and in another kind of funny-scary scene, he almost chokes Nina to death, stopping just in time for
Nina to croak out, "Go ahead! I've already told the neighbors you're planning on killing me." The scheme itself is kind
of pedestrian, with Vince impersonating a collaborator and Matt pretending to be a chauffeur, with the plan that they
can get the courier with the loot into a limo and get the hell out of dodge. Of course, things go horribly
awry, partly due to a rather prescient little scene where a bunch of female groupies are mobbing around a teen pop
star.
The rest of the film devolves into something that almost verges on the surreal at times. Matt and Vince continue to
spar, Matt gets the crap beaten out of him (several times, in fact), and Nina's drunken stupors lead to an unfortunate
accident. The showdown scene between Stevens as a viciously inebriated Nina and Gregg as the literally Bible toting
housekeeper must be seen to be believed. Matt is left in a semi-catatonic state by all of the goings-on, something not
helped by his hearty partying suburban neighbors, who all show up out of the blue right after Matt has been accosted
by the main thugs in the film. In a truly incredible moment, these neighbors (spearheaded by none other than Hogan
himself, Bob Crane) play a game called (wait for it)—"Braille" (which in Crane's drunken line reading sounds awfully like
"rape"), where their wives hide under blankets and the men have
to identify them by groping them.
Hunter was never an incredibly magnetic film presence, despite several big star turns, and while he's stalwart here, he
doesn't really create much sympathy for Matt, nor do romantic sparks really crackle between him and Devry. Janssen is
a bit better as the shady buddy, but he provokes unintended laughs when he gallivants around in a little pencil
mustache pretending to be Hispanic. The unabashed star of this film—for better or worse—is the hyperbolic Stevens,
who is part sex kitten, part harridan as Nina. It's a performance that is unforgettable, but perhaps not in a completely
laudatory way. The film's writing is so risible that part of Stevens' alcoholic flailing may simply be her manic attempts to
make it through a half baked film unscathed.
