Director, producer and Academy-Award-nominated screenwriter Andrew L. Stone made musical comedies for several decades before turning to noir films in the 1950s. With a script written by the multi-talented filmmaker himself and starring Joseph Cotten and Teresa Wright, Stone’s third noir The Steel Trap (1952) follows Los Angeles bank manager Jim Osbourne who gives into temptation by stealing a considerable amount of cash from his workplace on a Friday. Armed with the knowledge that Brazil’s extradition laws will work in his favor, Jim intends on fleeing the country with his wife Laurie and their daughter just in time to avoid the theft being discovered on Monday. Unfortunately for our protagonist, nothing goes according to plan.
Although the concept of men using any means necessary in order to break away from their less-than-exciting lives is not a novel one and has been explored in films like Double Indemnity (1944) and Pitfall (1948), Stone’s The Steel Trap is nevertheless a well-written, exciting and highly suspenseful noir that introduces its characters to a series of Kafkaesque obstacles waiting to be overcome, thereby keeping viewers on their toes. The two leads are a joy to behold, with Stone’s noir being the second film they co-starred in, the first being Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943).
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