Trapped (1949)

A Disappointing Continuation

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

she really doesn't have a heck of a lot to do and this movie is kind of gauche with its ridiculous opening in newsreel style, stretching the film out to feature length with an "in the news" documentary bit that segues to a silly bank scene in which a struggling lady restaurateur is held accountable for a phony 20 passed at her eatery.Lloyd Bridges is good but the weakness of the film is such that one gets tired of him along with the whole shebang, quite honestly!Have to concede that the very ending is quite... elaborate a veritableRube Goldberg contraption. What a way to go!The review needs another line, gee that's fine!

The film begins with a rather heavy-handed and hokey introduction extolling the virtues of Secret Service in their dealing with forged American dollars. Then, the actual story begins. It seems that a counterfeit $20 has turned up--and it's an awful lot like one passed by a man who has now been in prison several years (Lloyd Bridges). When he's questioned, he refuses to cooperate. However, when he does seem to be cooperating, it's a ruse--and soon he's escaped from custody. Eventually he makes his way back to his old gang--and he wants in for some of the action. Along the way, he meets up with a sharp character (John Hoyt) who wants to bankroll Bridges' scheme to make a killing with counterfeit bills. How all this works out is something you should see for yourself--and I really don't want to spoil the suspense by saying more.When this fame debuted in 1949, Bridges and Hoyt were hardly household names. Bridges went on to great fame in the 1950s and 60s but here he plays a guy very much unlike his later roles--in "Trapped", he's just a nasty little hood. As for Hoyt, he's a face many will recognize though his name would escape most. He generally played cranky guys who were not the least bit macho or heroic, yet here he plays a man definitely against this type! In fact, it might just be one of Hoyt's best roles--if not his best. It's a shame, really, as he MIGHT have become a household name, as he was the original Doctor in the pilot episode of "Star Trek".Overall, the film has a dandy script, is very entertaining and is a nice example of a lesser film noir movie that deserves to be seen. While not great, it certainly is very good and quite watchable.

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.

Lloyd Bridges had a face made for the camera, full of smooth, bony planes, a clean forehead, all dominated by a couple of deep-set eyes that seemed to glimmer in the shadows of his brows. And he had, throughout his career, the quick, nervous energy of a small predator, maybe a ferret. Even in the ripeness of his age, in the Hot Shot movies where he was a comic admiral.He made some decent movies but never achieved major stardom. Even here, in a relatively low-budget drama about counterfeiting and the Secret Service, he is a central figure but only a quasi-star.The police deliberately allow Bridges to escape from the slams in hopes that he will lead the Secret Service, personified mostly by John Hoyt, to the people who now are beginning to grind out money that is "queer" on plates that Bridges used to own. The escape was engineered because the Secret Service knows that Bridges has no place to go except to his ex girl friend in L.A. They have accordingly bugged her apartment and insinuated an undercover agent into her life. Hoyt is the undercover agent who allows himself to be sucked into funding a plan to produce the queer money. The specific idea to to capture Bridges and his accomplices the moment the money changes hands.That may be a little confusing, I know, but the plot is a little complicated. And besides, my mind couldn't quite wrap itself around John Hoyt as a serious undercover agent of social control. I kept seeing him as the three-armed Martian in a "Twilight Zone" episode. That image sometimes became a bit blurry and Hoyt would appear in a toga as one of the conspiratorial Senators from MGM's "Julius Caesar." Anyway, the plot zooms forward as if self propelled. There are fist fights, shoot outs. Before the end, Bridges is back in the slams. Hoyt tells the desk sergeant, "Let's keep this quiet. Book him under another name." Desk Sergeant: "How does 'Briggs' sound"? Hoyt: "As good as any." Desk Sergeant: "It's my mother-in-law's name. I just wanted to see what it looks like on a police blotter." That's about the only example of witty dialog in the movie. Almost all the rest is spare and functional, along the lines of Bridges', "If anybody gets hurt, it ain't gonna be me cause I got the gun. Just remember to get this heap started when you see me comin'." It's not a bad movie, just a routine one. Richard Fleischer directed a number of small-budget dramas like this before going on to bigger and better things like "Doctor Doolittle." Well -- bigger, anyway.Want to see a funny movie about counterfeiting? Try "Mister 880." A more sophisticated movie about counterfeiting? "To Live and Die in L.A."