The Money Trap

Except for the music, THE MONEY TRAP is strictly by the numbers. Third billed Rita Hayworth has maybe five minutes screen time. No matter, she bring what little class this movie has to the screen. My big question is, what is such a terrific cast DOING in this insipid junk? Drawing a paycheck, I guess. Certainly, Glenn Ford, Ricardo Montalban and Joseph Cotton (all then under contract to MGM) were strictly drawing paychecks. This movie SHOULD be seen a reminder of sexual attitudes to which we should NEVER return. That is, whatever males do is OK, but woe be on to a female whom "transgresses," PARTICULARLY if she enjoys it! Otherwise, don't waste your time.

Few Hollywoodian stars made an opposite couple so longevous as the stunning beauty Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in LADY IN QUESTION, GILDA, CARMEN, AFFAIR IN TRINIDAD and THE MONEY TRAP was the final act on spending a night together, a sort of farewell for good, this late Noir has an auspicious premise whereby the veteran LA cop Ford gets involved with a wealthy heiress the platinum blonde Elke Sommer living at a flamboyant house in Bunker Hill area.

Often sponsoring expensive night party which his meager salary can't afford, meanwhile investigating a safe's robbery of half million dollar at Mansion of a high-class doctor Joseph Cotten, therefore it came in handy due the worried Ford in dire straits with his splurger wife he oversees became a corrupt cop also scorned by his crook partner Montalban.

For unknown reasons it has hardly beaten by the critics and IMDB's members neither, in other hand I found it rather interesting upon my humble knowledges of Noir American cinema, mainly by the heavenly vision of paradise of the Nordic eye-candy in sexy outfits, even an already aged Rita has still a flaming sexy-appeal worthwhile a look anyhow, in time finally it will be release officially in ultimate restored version.

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First watch: 2005 / How many: 3 / Source: Cable TV-DVD / Rating: 7.5.

Great cast. Might be interesting. Hmmmm.... Well, it starts with a brassy, obnoxious jazz theme, followed oddly by bongo music. Our first scene is Ford as a detective at the scene of a crime wherein a woman was hung in a whore house by her husband. Next scene we have Elke Sommer undressing to go to bed with husband Ford. This film wastes no time! But then it goes on and on with crummy characters played by William Campbell, Ricardo Montalban, Hayworth and Cotten. Dreary all the way to the bitter conclusion. The post-'Gilda' reteaming of Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford is a sad spectacle. Ford's haircut is so bad his ears look bat-like. Hayworth, admittedly is not playing a glamour part, but her degradation is not pleasant to watch. Together they appear dissipated, like their careers at this point. Ford really seems bored and uncomfortable throughout. And Cotten is as dull as usual. But Montalban does show some energy as fellow cop, and Elke Sommer has never looked better and plays the most likable (maybe only likable) character in the film. If that valium is making you feel too good, bring yourself down with this movie.

The noir cycle had run its course by the early 60s, but a few stragglers made it through the gates before the 70s changed the way movies were made and viewed. The Money Trap is one of them, and could have been made, in terms of technique and sensibility, in 1956 rather than a decade later. (Digression: this was a time when a series of European "bombshells," most of whom seem to have learned their lines phonetically, starred in big-budget movies, in Hollywood's dizzy anticipation of multiculturalism. Here we have to endure Elke Sommer whose eyes all but cross in her attempt to pronounce English). The theme is the rot at the core of the American Dream (Norman Mailer's novel of that title appeared in 1966, too). Glenn Ford plays a police detective goaded by Sommer to a higher standard of living than his salary permits. He allows himself to be lured into the company of some very shady characters, chief among whom is Joseph Cotten, and starts his descent down the primrose path. Best part of the movie is the return of Rita Hayworth (Ford and she first paired, unforgettably, in Gilda 20 years earlier), as a blowsy waitress with whom Ford once.... Well, you get the picture. When he asks her how she's been, she grudgingly responds, "I've been around."

I have always been in love, or at least enchanted, by this Burt Kennedy's surprising film from a westerner as he was. It is a tremendous and solid adaptation from a Lionel White's novel. Unfortunately never released and translated in France and in French. Many of Lionel White were not anyway. Here, Glenn Ford's performance reminds me Fred McMurray in Richard Quine's PUSHOVER, a rogue cop tale, also directed by a non crime film specialist, as Burt Kennedy; Quine was on the contrary a comedy specialist. And it is so touching to see Glenn Ford and his long time friend Rita Hayworth for the last time on screen after GILDA, LADY IN QUESTION, AFFAIR IN TRINIDAD and LOVES OF CARMEN. Yes I definitely love this underrated Burt Kennedy's film noir pulled by a tremendous acting, directing, production design, atmosphere.