Pitfall: André De Toth

One of the cornerstones of film noir is a protagonist haunted by a past that won't leave him or her alone.  But in André De Toth's Pitfall, the protagonist is haunted not by his past, but by his present.  John Forbes lives the American Dream: he has a good job, a lovely wife, a beautiful son, and a pretty house in a nice suburban neighborhood.  The problem is that he hates it.  Forbes feels trapped by the 9-5 routine and his mundane life.  But salvation comes in Mona Stevens, a client for Forbes' insurance company.  Stevens received many gifts from an embezzler now behind bars.  When Forbes went to investigate the gifts, he fell in love with Mona and started an affair with her.  However, a jealous ex-cop and her old boyfriend, recently bailed from prison, want Forbes gone from the picture.  Pitfall examines the near-destruction of the American nuclear family that would become so stereotypical of the following decade after the film's release.  In a sense, it predates films like American Beauty and Revolutionary Road which delighted in seeing just how far such a family could bend before breaking.  The problem is that in Pitfall, the family doesn't break.  It suffers damage, particularly due to the film's inevitably violent climax.  But the family stays together. Why? Out of some sense of responsibility?  Out of a fear of not fitting in and creating a scandal?  Whatever the reason, the film's end seems disingenuous and indicative of the very culture that the aforementioned films tried to examine. 

6/10