The Trap

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 remembered this film from my youth - I only saw it once in the cinema, and when A & E carried it on their movie line-up a couple of years ago it brought back all those feelings that I had for this particular film. What a story. I love the characters, especially Oliver Reed - who really fills almost every frame with his menacing presence. It was refreshing to watch a film that was made before encroaching "political correctness", and it dealt with some terrific social and personal issues all with the glorious backdrop of British Columbian wilderness.

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.

--- 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.

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.