Deathtrap (1982)

This is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's great and the acting is brilliant. In the scene in which Michael Caine calls the police in tears and then stops the waterworks the second he finishes the call really displays Caine's brilliance. The twists are a lot of fun. The film is top-notch.

Fmovies: Shame really - very rarely do I watch a film and am left feeling disappointed at the end. I've seen quite a few of Ira Levin's adaptations - 'Rosemary's Baby' and 'The Stepford Wives' - and liked both them, but this just didn't appeal to me.

When I read the plot outline - an award winning playwright (Michael Caine) decides to murder one of his former pupils (Christopher Reeve) and steel his script for his own success - I was excited. I like thrillers, Michael Caine's a good actor, Sidney Lumet's a good director and Ira Levin's work is generally good.

I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but all I'd say is there are LOADS of twists and turns. So many its kind of hard to explain the film's plot line in detail, without giving it away. I enjoyed the first ... 45 minutes, before the twists and turns began to occur and at that point my interest and enjoyment began to fade out. Though I have to give Lumet credit for the very amusing ending which did make me laugh out loud.

The main cast - Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon and Irene Worth - were all brilliant in their roles. Though Worth's obvious fake Russian accent got on my nerves slightly (nothing personal Irene, I think any actor's fake accent would irritate me). Not sure if Cannon's character was meant to be annoyingly funny but Dyan managed to annoy and amuse - at the same time.

Anyone reading this - I don't want you to be put-off watching this because of my views - give it a chance, you may like it, you may not. It's all about opinion.

Deathtrap runs like a play within a movie about who did what to whom, as it primarily takes place on one set. The premise is that an accomplished playwright, whose star is falling, receives a magnificent manuscript from a former student and so he plans to off his protege and appropriate his play, to the (loud) protests of his wife. Or so you think, for the first half of the movie. Past the halfway mark, Deathtrap begins to throw in twists and surprises that turn its premise on its head, then right around, and then in a mad spin, all the time keeping its title appropriate. It's an excellent mystery movie soaked in wit.

Michael Caine, as the senior playwright, plays himself in this movie - a slightly loony and very dramatic Brit. No surprises here - he does his usual good work. He gets the best line of Deathtrap, which he executes perfectly: "What is your definition of success, being gang-banged in a state penitentiary?"

Christopher Reeve, on the other hand, juggles comedy and drama in a surprisingly strong performance playing the ambitious (and psychopathic) young playwright. He also gets to show off his very toned body, which he must've retained coming off the Superman movies.

Caine and Reeve have collaborated in another movie that's one of my favorite comedies - Noises Off. It similarly revolves around a play as well, although this time Caine is the director and Reeve is an actor. They are joined by comic veterans Carol Burnett, John Ritter, Marilu Henner (Taxi) and Mark Linn-Baker (Perfect Strangers). Together, they demonstrate the calamities that befall the bed-hopping cast and crew of a play. On the surface, the movie looks to be mostly slapstick but upon watching you find that they are many subtle jokes that require more than one viewing to catch. Wish this underrated movie was available on DVD.

Deathtrap fmovies. As one reviewer said "It's hard to talk about this film without giving too much away" - and I do agree with this statement about the film. This is a movie one just has to simply watch for themselves because if you are told to much about the film then it would ruin the entire movie.

Is Deathtrap good? Yes it is a very good mystery dramedy (comedy-drama). It has it's comical moments but the film also has it's times of drama. If you like mysteries then you may enjoy this film.

Are you wanting a double feature? I would recommend this movie (Deathtrap) along with movies like: "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid", "Clue", "Sleuth", or "Murder by Death".

8/10

Definitely one of the most witty and twisted who-dunnit I ever seen. Christopher Reeve and Micheal Caine were brilliant and kept me going through the whole affair.

Very classy set pieces and the props really lend a sense of atmosphere to the proceedings. The minimalist feel works for the whole picture.

My only complain isn't with the film itself but the lack of a decent widescreen edition of the movie on DVD. I own the fullscreen version (which proves I love the film enough to endure fullscreen presentation) but a awesome Deluxe or 'special' edition would most surely get my cash.

Unlike Tinseltown's version of HELLO, DOLLY!, Jay Presson Allen's screen adaptation of Ira Levin's hit Broadway thriller couldn't wait for it's stage incarnation to shutter before putting it up on the silver screen, so producers wisely decided to make the most of it's lengthy White Way run! The film's opening and closing scenes are shot inside New York's intimate Music Box Theater where DEATHTRAP played for nearly five years. Even the film's final fadeout on the theatre marquee is a version of the stageplay's famous logo. (Although marketeers decided to go with a more fun Rubik's Cube icon for the movie.)

Now on a low-priced DVD release, DEATHTRAP seems just as fresh and inventinve as ever. The cast is just right (better than their stage counterparts) and location scouts should be applauded for finding a suitably spooky house for our "one room, two act thriller" to take place in. Opened up in surprisingly simple and innovative ways, director Sidney Lumet wisely tags any "new" material onto the beginning and end of the film and leaves Levin's wickedly twisty center alone.

The film's last scene is a major Hollywood departure from the boards, and slightly undermines one of Levin's plot points from earlier in the film [Helga (about a dagger): "Will be used by another woman BECAUSE of play."]. Like Robert Altman's THE PLAYER, however, our new finale helps the film fold in on itself once again and blurs the lines between stage, screen, and (could it be?) real life!