This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Tired of his hum-drum life, insurance executive Dick Powell falls for Lizabeth Scott, whose boyfriend embezzled funds so that she could live a high-style life. Imprisoned now, he soon learns from Raymond Burr, a private detective who has really fallen for the Scott character, that Powell and Scott have been carrying on. Truth be told, Scott still has deep feelings for her boyfriend, loathes Burr and breaks off with Powell when she sees he is married with a child.What ensues is one tragic event after another leading to justifiable homicide on the part of Powell and Scott killing Burr for giving her newly freed boyfriend a gun to kill Powell.Jane Wyatt plays an almost Father Knows Best character mother in what turns out to be a tale of only having the good life and not getting involved.Powell's performance is rather restrained but effective and Burr steals the scenes he is in-a brutal person who shall stop at nothing to get the Scott character. Femme fatale? Scott is an innocent person drawn into this situation by circumstances, even beyond her control.

Someone once said that the cure for boredom is curiosity, but that there is no cure for curiosity.Dick Powell as the bored insurance adjuster or whatever he is, is bored with his typical family and his typical work. Every day is the same, although his wife, the elegant Jane Wyatt, is conceivably livening up his nights.Raymond Burr is a private investigator working for the Global Inadequate Circumcisional Jupiter Atlas Mutual Insurance Company and Perloo Society, and he twigs Powell to the fact that some stolen goods can be recovered from an innocent recipient, Elizabeth Scott. "Some dish," drools the creepy Burr who blinks only once in the entire movie. (I counted.) Powell is as rude and dismissive of Burr as he is with his family and everyone else -- until he tumbles into the arms of Scott. The guy is wholly smitten. And who wouldn't be? Scott isn't a knockout or a very good actress but she flings herself around Powell, like an amoeba's pseudopod around a food particle, and practically consumes him. Observing all this from a distance is the macabre figure of the jealous Burr, who happens to be the most clever person in the entire movie.Well, it's a bad situation all right and Powell, who seems to have three pounds of feathers for a brain, tries to straighten it out but just makes it worse. But he's not alone in his stupidity. The ex boyfriend who gave Scott the stolen goods is in the slams, and Burr visits him and plants all sorts of suspicions about Scott's relationship with Powell.The boyfriend is Byron Barr and he can't act, but he still manages to project the character of the most stupid person in the movie. Barr is about to be released and Scott visits him, hoping they can start off again, clean. But Barr is fuming with jealousy. Scott has shown herself to be a sensitive and perceptive person so far, but when she presses her case with the outraged and glandular Barr she joins the ranks of the unspeakably dumb.The plot is from a mold similar to that of "Double Indemnity" but less gripping. The performances are professional enough, except for Byron Barr, and in fact Raymond Burr is pretty convincing.

The concept of an insurance man being the leading character in a passionate film noir story probably seemed more plausible four years after "Double Indemnity" used that theme. In "Pitfall", insurance man John Forbes is portrayed by Dick Powell as a man so dour, unimaginative and boring that the narrative never rings true. We are to believe that Forbes is attractive to sultry blonde Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott) and that he is passionate enough to actually make a move on her. But Forbes has a pulse rate that never rises above "disinterested". I guess we are expected to take his mopey attitude as noir cool.The other actors do a fine job. Lizabeth Scott would indeed inspire lust in the 40s male. In the film, her ex-boyfriend committed a crime for her. Raymond Burr is great as the threatening bully. And Jane Wyatt, in a smaller role, is fine as the little lady at home who is saddled with the sad sack Forbes.In the end, justice is served and they all live happily ever after. Well, not really. This is a minor work, well-filmed, but marred by Powell's performance.

The need for middle-class families to keep up appearances leads to certain tensions, anxieties and atmospheres being a normal feature of their lives and in this type of environment, it's often the children who suffer most. In one of the most poignant scenes in "Pitfall", a little boy has a terrifying nightmare which his father immediately rationalises by blaming the comic book that the boy had been reading immediately before going to sleep. The father is totally unaware of how profoundly his day to day behaviour has affected his son and that he's the real cause of his son's insecurities and fears.Despite having a family, a good job and a home in the suburbs, John Forbes (Dick Powell) is deeply dissatisfied and bitter about the suffocating routine that his daily life has become. He's irritable at home because he feels he's "in a rut six feet deep" and his patient wife responds to his sarcasm by reassuring him that what he does is worthwhile because he and others like him are "the backbone of the country".At the Olympic Mutual Insurance Company, Forbes is in charge of recovering a list of items that were bought with stolen money by an embezzler called Bill Smiley (Byron Barr) who's currently in prison. After private investigator "Mac" MacDonald (Raymond Burr), who also works for the company, discovers that Smiley had bought his girlfriend a number of expensive gifts, Forbes decides to visit Mona Stevens (Lizabeth Scott) to find out more. Mona is a glamorous fashion model and co-operates fully with Forbes' investigation. He's disappointed that she sees him as merely "a little man with a briefcase" and is easily persuaded to go with her for a ride in the speedboat she'd been given by Smiley. Dinner etc follows and Forbes doesn't get home until the early hours of the next morning.When MacDonald, who'd become infatuated by Mona, sees Forbes leaving her home, he becomes insanely jealous and savagely beats him up. Forbes' injuries prevent him from going to work and when Mona finds out, she goes to see him but is shocked to discover that he's married and so ends their affair. MacDonald threatens to tell Sue Forbes (Jane Wyatt) about the affair and after Forbes beats him up and Smiley is released from prison, MacDonald retaliates by telling Smiley everything, giving him a gun and encouraging him to take his revenge on Forbes. MacDonald then tries to force Mona into going away with him but understandably, she has other ideas. The mayhem that follows then leads to two of the main characters being gunned down and the others facing a very bleak future.Dick Powell brings real bite to Forbes' cynical outbursts and constant complaining as he displays the weakness and selfishness that leads his character to deceive Mona, betray his wife and his employers and damage his son's emotional and psychological development before ending up in a far worse situation than he started in. Raymond Burr is very intimidating as the manipulative villain of the piece who's unctuous, corrupt and extremely jealous and Lizabeth Scott is perfect in her role as the vulnerable blonde who, through no fault of her own, is treated very badly by Forbes, MacDonald and Smiley. Jane Wyatt and Jimmy Hunt also provide good supporting performances as Forbes' wife and son."Pitfall" is set in the period immediately after World War 11 and at the time of its release must've resonated strongly with many people who, for various reasons, would've been finding it difficult to adjust to the standards and expectations of suburban life at that time. It's a cautionary tale that warns of what can happen to anyone who doesn't conform and is also a very well made film that packs a lot of drama and incident into its relatively short running time.