This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

I didn't have any idea what I was getting into when I watched this one. What I got was a look at Rita Hayworth and the signs of alcoholism and aging....plus a pretty straight forward police drama...with a decent jazz score.I was really looking forward to seeing Hayworth as I like to watch former stars later in their careers. It was painfully apparent that she wasn't in very good shape for this one. I don't know if it was the starting of the Alzheimer's she got or alcoholism but she shows her age in this one. She was easily one of the most beautiful girls on screen in her heyday but I guess we all have to age. Some just not so gracefully.Glenn Ford is OK in this but the story in itself is just so transparent. You can pretty much predict every twist and turn. I wasn't surprised once at any "moment" in this film.Too many stories going on at once with a very average screenplay tells you why this didn't get released on DVD for a while. It didn't make an impact back in the day I'm willin' to bet.Go with the user ratings on this one. If you wanna feel like a genius and predict every thing that happens in a film...watch this one. You'll be the next champ of Jeopardy.

Lionel White's novel becomes an adequate time-filler from rote director Burt Kennedy. Big city cop Glenn Ford, anxious to hold on to luscious wife Elke Sommer, turns to crime; his partner of six years, Ricardo Montalban, wants in on the action. Familiar swindling and safe-cracking yarn goosed by Hal Schaefer's beatnik music, Paul Vogel's gorgeously bleak black-and-white cinematography, and interesting performances from an agreeable cast. Glenn Ford doesn't try hard to flesh out this complicated character, yet his smaller moments (like stroking Sommer's forearm in bed) go a long way to making a connection with the audience; Rita Hayworth (despite a corny send-off) is excellent as an alcoholic, and Montalban simmers with cat-like heat and paranoia. The dialogue is amusingly gritty ("I'm worried!" ... "Then worry with your mouth shut!") and the locales are vividly captured, however the M-G-M studio streets and back alleys look as phony as ever. **1/2 from ****

The Money Trap for me has the distinction of being one of the last B features I ever saw on the big screen as part of a double bill. It is a film way past its prime as a noir picture.Noir as a genre essentially died little by little as more televisions were in American homes. The kind of stories that noir does best were now being shown on television every night. Movies were getting bigger and splashier to compete with TV and films like the Money Trap were just not being made for theaters any more. Watching it yesterday on TCM, I was struck by the ludicrousness of a letter box version for a black and white noir. By the way, in 1965 television was about to go full color and black and white feature films were getting rarer each year.But even as a noir film, The Money Trap has no people you really care about. Glenn Ford is married to a wealthy woman and lives in a lifestyle beyond his cop's salary. But then wife Elke Sommer gets a letter saying her late Daddy's stock won't be paying any dividends. Well golly gee, we should all have such problems. It never occurs to Glenn Ford to tell Elke to tone down her extravagant ways, maybe even move out of that luxurious home they have to something more modest. Ford's kind of into the good life also.During a homicide investigation involving a wealthy doctor played by Joseph Cotten who allegedly surprised a burglar in his home, Ford and partner Ricardo Montalban suspect something dicey. Before expiring in the ambulance, the burglar gives Ford the safe combination.Now knowing something is amiss here. Ford and Montalban decide on a robbery. Of course the doctor is smarter than the both of them put together. The whole thing ends in one bloody mess and the viewer doesn't really care.A few years later The Money Trap would have been strictly a made for TV feature if it got made at all. Probably MGM was busy trying to get rid of long time contractual obligations to Ford and Montalban. Both of them have sure done better work.But the saddest thing of all is that this is the last feature film partnership of Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth. Rita's the best thing in this film, playing a very worn out forty something ex-girlfriend of Ford's and widow of the burglar Cotten shot. A great acting job and not anything a former reigning sex goddess ever did before.But it ain't enough to save The Money Trap.

Except for the music, THE MONEY TRAP is strictly by the numbers. Third billed Rita Hayworth has maybe five minutes screen time. No matter, she bring what little class this movie has to the screen. My big question is, what is such a terrific cast DOING in this insipid junk? Drawing a paycheck, I guess. Certainly, Glenn Ford, Ricardo Montalban and Joseph Cotton (all then under contract to MGM) were strictly drawing paychecks. This movie SHOULD be seen a reminder of sexual attitudes to which we should NEVER return. That is, whatever males do is OK, but woe be on to a female whom "transgresses," PARTICULARLY if she enjoys it! Otherwise, don't waste your time.