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.

--- mild spoilers ---

this British adventure film tells a heart-wrenching love story by combining a classic erotic fantasy with a realistic depiction of the hard life in the 19th century Canadian wilderness. The show-piece of the film is the wolf attack. It is brilliantly filmed, with the camera moving on and on through the dark snow-covered wood, while the starving beasts relentlessly try to snap at the wounded trapper. Actually, these are no wolfs but German shepherds, but the whole thing was so damn frightening that I completely forgot that this film is forty years old. Oliver Reed and Rita Tushingham are two great actors and make a wonderful couple in this film. I loved the last line delivered by Reed to Tushingham.

Only one thing I have to criticize: the two roguish native Americans are played by western actors with wigs. Looks very cheap by modern standards.

"The Trap" seems to be a lost classic. I had never heard or read of it until it aired on German television last week under the title "Wie ein Schrei I'm Wind". Then I found out that both of my parents had seen it decades ago and were so impressed by it that they never forgot it.

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)

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.

I've seen this movie only twice. Once when it first hit commercial television, and again about 15 years ago, and it is unforgettable. It's great to see I'm not alone in my appreciation. I think it's a classic . . . . a "must see" for anyone who considers themselves a cinefile.

The two leads, Tushingham and Reed, are at the height of their powers and both give brilliant performances. (no hyperbole) The story is well conceived, well developed and executed to perfection. It holds together. The movie is a little gem.

Considering when it was made, the budget it was made under, and the politics of the time, (you couldn't find "real" Native American's in the actors union), it is an extraordinary work.

To criticize this movie for using an Italian "Indian" is like dismissing "Saving Private Ryan" because of a half-dozen glaring continuity errors. It means you've missed the point. Close your mind and open your heart. You will be rewarded for watching it, if in no other way than to witness, deeply and completely, the archetypes of what the masculine and feminine essences are in the universe.

Tushingham (Eve) IS the frightened rabbit that Reed (Jean) says she is. She has been torn from civilization to witness all manner of horrors of life in the wilderness. And what can be said of Reeds LaBete? Even those who laud this actors genius underestimate him.

While we're on the subject, how is it possible that during the Acadamy Awards Ceremony, when Reed's last movie "Gladiator" won BEST PICTURE, that he was overlooked when they did their eulogizing segment on those important figures who had passed away during the previous year? Conspicuous and tragic was his omission from that roster.

Do yourself a favor. See "The Trap". And then . . . . see it again.

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