Scotwon "Trapped" has the darkness of both cinematography and spirit that distinguishes film noir. A story of thieves and counterfeiters and undercover cops, it grabs attention and holds it until the surprising and violent end. The script is tight and believable. One of the best things the film has going for it is that it was the first large role for the very talented but tragically doomed Barbara Payton. In "Trapped" she is the girlfriend of counterfeiter/thief Tris Stewart. The character Payton plays is Meg Dixon who calls herself Laurie Fredericks. Unlike the typical film noir femme fatale, the strikingly beautiful blonde is not so much nasty and cold-blooded as foolishly devoted to her criminal boyfriend. She adopts a criminal lifestyle out of love for him. Played by the handsome Lloyd Bridges, Tris Stewart is an utterly amoral psychopath motivated by sheer greed along with his own love for Meg/Laurie. Perhaps the only weak link in the film is John Hoyt as undercover cop John Downey. We should sympathize with Downey as the chief representative of the law but Hoyt's character appears so cold and calculating that he does not seem much better than the crooks he is trying to catch. However, this is a minor flaw in a fine film.

classicsoncall For the most part, this is a fairly interesting crime drama involving a counterfeit money racket, but it loses steam when the principal character Tris Stewart (Lloyd Bridges) is put away about two thirds of the way through. Stewart's contact Sylvester (James Todd) didn't have the charisma to carry the picture to it's ultimate conclusion, and if anyone deserved to be 'trapped' at the finale, it should have been the guy at the top of the credits. Speaking of which, and I hate to nitpick the flaws here, but what happened to Sylvester's henchmen after they brought Laurie (Barbara Payton) in to expose agent Downey (John Hoyt)? They just oddly disappeared before the cops made their entrance for the shootout with Sylvester.It's cool though when a picture manages to get clever with itself like this one did. When Hackett/Downey brings in Stewart after his arrest, he tells the desk cop to book him under another name. The cop's response - "How's the name of Bridges do"? I replayed that line just to be sure I got it right.Anyway, there's enough of the old cross and double cross here to keep most viewers interested. Bridges and Hoyt make for an attractive couple, maybe even too attractive to be a couple of cons. As the government agent, John Hoyt appears to be on the wrong side of the badge most of the time, and one might wonder why his and Bridges' role weren't reversed. Then again, having Hoyt's character hook up with the gorgeous Barbara Payton wouldn't have worked at all.Some good lines of dialog in the picture, my summary quote by Laurie is one of the better ones. But I also got a kick out of Sylvester's snarl at Agent Downey - "You're all washed up Copper"! It sounded like something Bugs Bunny said to a gangster once in one of those old Warner Brothers cartoons.

evening1 An excellent thriller on the slimy subject of counterfeiting.Lloyd Bridges, 36 at the time, is as sexy as he is scary in the role of a violent, gum-chewing con who thinks he's two steps ahead of the feds while being drawn into their clutches. Barbara Payton is gorgeous as Tris's cigarette-girl moll in her first leading film role. I looked Payton up on Wikipedia and was surprised to learn she wound up as a prostitute who had to sleep on park benches. What a fall from glory...This taut drama takes us back to the days when $20 was considered a large bill and people played the rumba on their phonographs. The film crackles with hard-bitten dialog, and, with Kansas City as its sometime locale, features a lovely jazz soundtrack.The stentorian, documentary-like voice-over's a little trite, but this film is quite gripping. ----------------------------------------------- "These are my old-age pension: The only thing better than money are the plates that make 'em!"

sol1218 ****SPOILERS**** Semi-documentary movie about a convicted counterfeiter Tris Stewart, Lloyd Bridges, allowed to escape from custody as he was being transferred from Atlanta to Kansas City in order to have him unwittingly help the FBI and police find the counterfeit ring using the plates that he had hidden to flood the West cost with fake $20.00 bills. Tris get in touch with his girlfriend Laurie, Barbara Payton, in L.A not knowing that her apartment is being bugged by the FBI. With the police knowing every move that Tris is making they set up a trap for him only after he finds who's printing the phony money and where the fake $20.00 bill plates are. Tris finds out from his former partner Sam Hooker, Douglas Spencer, that he sold the valuable plates to an investment consultant in L.A named Jack Sylvester, James Todd. Going to Sylvester's office in downtown L.A Tris strikes a deal with him on getting 250 grand in fake money for 25 thousand in real money from him saying that he can have it by the next day. Laurie who works as a cigarette girl at the Chanteclair Night Club knows a big spender named Johny Hackett,John Hoyt, who's ready to lay out the cash for Tris so he can share the 250 thousand in fake money. What Laurie and Trish and Sylvester don't know is that Johnny Hackett is really John Downey Federal Agent. Everything is going well until one night Laurie overhears at the club one of the costumers who recognizes Johnny as working for the Fed's. Laurie ends up telling Tris about Johnnys real intentions with setting up the deal in order to trap him and Sylvester. Tris instead of telling Sylvester about it kidnaps Johnny and has him drive out to a deserted beach and when he tries to shoot him Johnny turns and knocks Tris out. With Tris behind bars Johnny now has to think fast to get Sylvester and the plates and his gang apprehended. Johnny then goes to Sylvester's office and tells him that Tris was caught by the police and is talking and not to answer any phone calls; knowing that Laurie will call him and expose him to Sylvester as a Federal Agent. Johnny talks Sylvester into leaving his office and take him to his hideout where he has his counterfeit operation in order to seal the deal with the 250 thousand fake to 25 thousand real money switch. Sylvester in return plans to take the real money and counterfeit plates and check out of the country to Mexico. Johnny also got in touch with the police to follow him and come to his aid when he's in danger of being found out since he doesn't have the 25 thousand in real money to make the exchange.Laurie not being able to contact Tris, in her not knowing that he's in police custody, gets it touch with one of Sylvester's hoods and they both head for his hideout. Johnny taking his time counting the money he's getting in the switch gives the police and FBI time to get there and rescue him. When Laurie arrives and tells Sylvester what Johnny is really all about all hell breaks loose and just in the nick of time the police arrive. For what I still can't understand Sylvester shoots and kills Laurie and then makes a run for it along the railroad tracks outside his hideout. Getting on top of a train car Sylvester sees that he's trapped and puts his hands up to give himself up but there's a live wire over his head that he doesn't see and when his hands touch it Sylvester gets electrocuted. Pretty good Film Noir movie but with one major flaw; Why did Sylvester shoot Laurie who did nothing to set him up to be caught by the police at the end of the film and not shoot Johnny who did? Lloyd Bridges and Barbara Payton really had sparks flying and electricity surging in all their scenes together and I guess the motto of the movie "Trapped" is "Crime does not pay; Even in counterfeit money!