The Trap

I saw this movie on TV when I was probably about 11 years old (35 years ago!)--and I still remember it very well. There was a local station which, for one solid week, aired it every day--and I watched it every single day! Unfortunately, I haven't seen it since and I don't think it's available on VHS but I remember it being visually beautiful and plot-wise, simply spellbinding, full of action, poignancy and suspense. Rita Tushingham and Oliver Reed are amazing in this. It's such a shame that no one aside from real film buffs have ever heard of this movie. It's a little lost gem that seems to have gotten buried somewhere in the Canadian snow--but if you ever get a chance to see it, please do!! It'll be time well spent.

Like many other reviewers I remember this film from the late 60's on late night tv. It was the era of kung fu films and blaxploitation movies which we all watched avidly. Films like 'the Trap' held no interest for us but it held our attention and fascination in an absorbing way. The slowly changing relationship between the trapper and his mute wife/slave transfixed us in its humanity and fragility. The story centres around these two mismatched ndividuals, both handicapped in their own way as they struggle to make a life together in the canadian wilderness. From initial brutality to tolerance to interdependence and finally the eventual outcome at the end. Both Reed and Tushingham give strong performances here, especially Oliver. When he wasnt getting soaked he could turn out some amazing work.Sadly he is no longer with us and is no doubt propping up another bar somewhere in shakespeares heaven.He will be missed. I hope they repeat this on tv or release it on video again soon.It is a truly outstanding work.

I fell in love with Oliver Reed when I was a mere a slip of a girl. That's what this movie is -- a teenage fantasy. Performances are great for the era and the script. Surprisingly NOT overdone, though it's a melodrama to beat all melodramas. Pretty neat that most of the action is centered around only two people - scenes with others in them are only at the beginning and end - and the two carry it off quite well - the action holds. Rita Tushingham did a fine job without ever saying a word. That's acting. Tough to write "dialogue" for Reed to get the story out - and his own back story - when the person he's talking to never speaks to move the narrative along. The scriptwriters handled it pretty well during the time they spend alone in the wild. Oliver Reed, hairy and covered in skins, was as masculine a hunk of man needing domestication as any young girl could ask for. Too bad he made lots of bad movie choices (perhaps because that's what he was offered -- being a difficult actor), because he was delightfully bad-boy gorgeous and had incredible chemistry on camera. (Sighhhh)

I saw this movie one late night on TV in the early 70's while living in NYC. The image of Eve and Jean La Bete discovering themselves set against the Northwest wilderness never left me. Over the years this movie kept creeping back into my head like few other movies have. It is not the best produced movie ever made, but it tells a story that is unique, simple and compelling. Reed brings a "bull in the china-shop" masculinity to the character Jean La Bete that at first conflicts with, but then blends with the very subtle beauty and inner strength of Eve, played perfectly and silently by Rita Tushingham. (Tushingham also plays the adult daughter of Laura and Dr. Zhivago in Dr. Zhivago.) I didn't see "The Trap" again until a few years ago when I came across a cheap used copy online. This is a very unusual love story. "The Trap" might catch you like it did me years ago.

Lush Canadian scenery that stretches as far as can be imagined, and yet this film manages to convey claustrophobia on the part of a traumatized girl compelled to wed a brutish-seeming fur trapper. The two leads play off each other very well. Miss Tushingham cannot speak yet shows powerful emotions in her facial expressions and body language. Mr. Reed gives a bravuro performance as a rough man trying to show his underdeveloped tender side. The plot is tight, the cinematography excellent, and the acting first-rate. One comment to those who wonder why Eve didn't use sign language or write: In frontier, fur-trapping Canada, when this film is set, most folks were illiterate and no universal sign language system had yet been developed. And sorry the Indians weren't acted by real ones, but that seems a minor point in light of the job the cast and crew did on an obviously limited budget. Flaws aside, this was a gripping love story.