... because they all look so much alike! There are a bunch of double crosses and reveals in this fast moving film about a convicted counterfeiter (Lloyd Bridges) who promises to help the feds root out another counterfeiter in return for early release but then double crosses them and escapes. However, it is made somewhat confusing by the fact that all of the male supporting cast looks alike! This was an independent and thus probably a low budget production and I recognize John Hoyt, Barbara Payton, and of course Lloyd Bridges easily enough, but when it looks like yet another double cross or plot twist has been revealed I have to rewind and find out who this other person is - fed or bad guy - before I can determine the significance of what is happening.
This makes me really appreciate the stable of contract supporting cast that the major studios had. Warner Brothers' contract players for sure did not have looks to die for, but I could always tell the difference between Frank McHugh, Arthur Hoyl, and Robert Barrat. And over at MGM, nobody was ever going to confuse Felix Bressart with anyone else.
Lloyd Bridges really shows his penchant for being able to play a nasty amoral character here, two years before he plays a working class hero in "The Whistle at Eaton Falls". John Hoyt would not have been my first choice for the lead protagonist, but he carries his part off believably. This is a rare chance to see Barbara Payton in a lead role since her personal life will begin to disintegrate rather spectacularly in 1951 and take her acting hopes with it.
There is not much time for probing character development in this one, and it would have been interesting to find out why Payton's character has so much misplaced sympathy for Bridges' character, but I would still recommend it.
Trapped
1949
Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir / Thriller
Trapped
1949
Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir / Thriller
Plot summary
Secret Service agents make a deal with a counterfeiting inmate to be released on early parole if he will help them recover some bogus moneymaking plates, but he plans to double-cross them.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
August 22, 2021 at 02:32 AM
Director
Top cast
Movie Reviews
All of the non-descript supporting players hurt this one...
Really good film with a nice show case role for the under rated John Hoyt
Lloyd Bridges stars, and is slightly miscast(he's too good looking), in a tale of forger on the run. Bridges is a counterfeiter doing a stretch of time who is confronted by the reemergence of the bank notes he had been passing that got him put in jail. The Treasury department comes to ask his help and he at first refuses. Later he agrees and is set free in a staged escape. Bridges takes it on the lam and tries to run down the plates he had entrusted with a friend. Dark complex tale is a very good B crime drama. If it has any real flaws its that Bridges is not gritty enough as the lead. He doesn't feel like a tough felon in with a bunch of bad guys. Its far from a fatal flaw, but it's the difference between this being a great drama and a very good one. I also need to point out that the great and long running character actor John Hoyt has a large and very important role as an undercover T-man. Hoyt is a guy who usually plays a villain and usually has tiny roles, but here he gets what amounts to the second lead and he shines. Worth a bag of popcorn and a soda.
The strings come loose
The Secret Service is looking for a break in a counterfeiting case and they offer
gang member Lloyd Bridges who is in prison a chance to squeal on his old mob.
Bridges won't talk, but does pull off an escape.
It's all a set up with the Treasury guys monitoring him and his moll Barbara
Payton's every move. Like puppets on a string, but the strings come loose and
they are working in the dark.
As we learn what's the ending here is not the ending planned as Bridges is taken out of the picture because in real life he got ill. What happens isn't the
most satisfactory conclusion, but it had to do.
Even with making the change on the fly, Trapped is a nice satisfactory B film
from Columbia with the ensemble cast fitted nicely in their parts.