Note: Raymond Burr was a demon for work, appearing in more than 50 feature films between 1946 and 1957. He was typecast as the villain because his stoutness gave him a commanding menacing presence. Film historian Alain Silver described Raymond Burr's psycho private investigator in Pitfall as "both reprehensible and pathetic," a characterization also cited by film historian Richard Schickel as a prototype of film noir.
Pitfall
1948 / 1:26
Tagline: “A man can be as strong as steel … but somewhere
there's a woman who'll break him!”
[internet
archive]
In an incredible performance, Raymond Burr portrays a brutal private investigator that stalks Lizabeth Scott. She was connected with a case of embezzling that the insurance company, represented by Dick Powell, has to make good. Scott and married-with-young son Powell have brief dalliance that does not amount to much. However, Burr the Burly Brute wants Scott body and soul. He schemes to own her by setting up Powell in an ugly trap. Excellent plotting, pace, and climax with realistic characters.
Burr makes the most of an extended part as an ex-cop turned private investigator. He looks close to 300 pounds, making his head look small on a monolith of a body. The secretaries in Powell’s office nicknamed Burr “Gruesome” because he creeps them out. Doubtless ex-cop for cause, he hulks with repressed violence and moves as slow and leisurely as a cat as if to warn people to run away when he moves fast.
Whether he is redolent of threat or yearning for something nice to happen to him (for once), he stares with a faraway look, as if he has retreated to a place where feverish dreams are fulfilled and sociopathic plans hatched. The incredible scene in which he visits the salon where Scott models clothes and forces her to show more bare shoulders by taking her shawl down will give the movie-goer a full-blown case of the heebie-jeebies.
Burr seems eerily oblivious of the repulsion he provokes. In his narcissism, he figures that if the object of his obsession spends a little time with him, she’ll get over his being horrible and not feel the compulsion to take a shower whenever he looks at her. In his stupidity, he never considers the hazards of driving to desperation a woman who keeps a gun in her apartment. It is too much to expect that imagination-free victimizers to ever conceive of themselves as one day becoming the victim.
The performances make this movie well-worth viewing. Powell looks and talks rather deadpan as he plays the bored suburban husband who makes it easy for noir trouble to find him. It’s his damn fault, he brews his own trouble: he doesn’t tell Scott he’s married – the fink – and, deeply wounded yet again by useless immature men, Scott drops him.
Jane Wyatt is convincing as the dependable wife. When Powell, in a rut, asks her, “You were the homecoming queen and I most likely to succeed, what happened,” she answers matter-of-factly, “We got married. I had a baby.” Quite sensibly, she tries to talk him out of his sulky FOMO and get him to appreciating what he’s got, which is only a life millions would trade their eyeteeth for
Lizabeth Scott has delightful moments sporting about in a motor boat when she is actually smiling. This is a sea change from her usual defeated look caused by bad luck with the wrong kind of men. But due to Burr’s menace and stalking, it doesn’t take too long before she assumes her bewildered mien. She’s decidedly not a scheming femme fatale. She’s an ordinary woman who has been kicked around by life. She’s unlucky enough to get unwittingly involved with three clucks: a weak-minded boyfriend (Byron Barr), a bored insurance man (Powell), and a psychopathic detective (Burr).
We movie-goers that are also moralistic prudes get the message often sent in noir: it doesn’t take much to go off the rails and once off, really bad stuff can rain down. Don’t wander mindlessly into situations that a spouse has to forgive.
Pre-Mason
Burr
Please Murder Me (1956) [internet archive]
[my
review]
I Love Trouble (1948) [internet archive] [my
review]
Sleep, My Love (1948) [internet archive] [my
review]
Ruthless (1948) [internet archive] [my
review]
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