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Memorable, crazy movie

Great Film overall

Absolutely the worst movie.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

. . . plus a pair of other guys who call each other "sociopaths." This latter couple alternate between murderous episodes of trying to violently kill each other and more ominous scenes in which they kiss and make out. If there's a lesson that DEATHTRAP wishes viewers to learn, it's that orienteers who think the shortest distance between Points A and B is a straight line ought to be wary of blokes surveying for topographical maps. Standard operating procedure among this set seems to be luring rich women into sham marriages so that the actual mattress mates can conspire perfect DEATHTRAP crimes to live off the slaughtered loser ladies' loot. While it's true that DEATHTRAP's larcenous lovers do not get to share a "last laugh," this is no doubt an exception contrived for the DEATHTRAP plot which proves the Real Life Rule. As LOVE, SIMON is arguing in theaters right now, Congress MUST require ALL of Today's rising first graders to declare themselves as a matter of public record, so that no one can sneak around like a sociopath under false pretenses, engineering DEATHTRAPs for unsuspecting innocent victims.

...so how do I write a review without one? I'll try. I saw this when it first came out in the theater, and it was so much fun, with so many plot twists and double-crosses--some you can see coming and some not.I've recently seen it on Turner Classic Movies a couple of times, and it is still entertaining as far as the performances, even if you know what is coming. The set-up is this: Sidney Bruhl (Michael Caine), a playwright, has just written a flop. He returns to his country home from Broadway after phoning his wife, Myra (Dyan Cannon), about the bad news. He has been giving seminars on writing for aspiring playwrights, and when he gets home he opens a package sent to him by one of those students. It is a play entitled "Deathtrap", and the student sends a note asking if Sidney thinks it is any good. Sidney's analysis is that it is excellent, a sure fire hit, and then he starts to do and say little things that make the audience - and Myra - think that maybe Sidney is contemplating stealing the play, and doing away with the student who sent it in order to score a success for himself after a long stretch of flops. He calls the student and asks him to come to his house and in such a way that nobody will know where he has gone. Past that point I'll let you watch and see what happens.Now the student turns out to be played by Christopher Reeve, and given his devastating injury 13 years later that eventually took his life, seeing him walking around so young so healthy and never showing even a glimpse of his Superman persona - the only role he was really known for at the time - is worth the price of admission. Dyan Cannon is excellent as the nervous and hovering wife Myra. Michael Caine, who has given so many good performances over the years, seemed to work an awful lot during the 1980's, sometimes in good films sometimes in bad ones. This is one of the good films and he gives a very good performance. No doubt all of these good performances had something to do with director Sidney Lumet.Some people say the first half is great, the second half not so great, that it bogs down. I beg to differ. The pace between the two halves is just very different, but the whole thing keeps you on your toes. Make sure you notice everything that is going on.If I had to say anything negative it might be that the German psychic, Helga ten Dorp, is overdone and campy just a little bit. Plus it is a stretch that she makes a habit of shining flashlights through her neighbors' windows at night during rainstorms, and then wandering through their houses uninvited. If she is so psychic, can't she perceive she has overstayed her welcome from the minute she said hello? The original trailers had a Rubik's Cube with the faces of the cast members on different sides of the cube. I'd say that's an excellent visual description. Do give it a try. It's one of my favorite thrillers.

... and about as much fun as a stale Colombo episode. I don't know about the original play but it appears much too stagey a story to be compelling from the start.From the very sluggish start I think I can point the finger at the adaptation. Deathtrap is utterly boring for about 30-45 minutes. Maybe if I hadn't read the premise I would have been a tad more patient but the setup really wears down the plot in the first act.The twisty second act is no more clever than a routine Agatha Christie whodunit. You are so well trained to think ahead of the characters by then that only the very ending can surprise you. And it is not really a surprise that lifts the lot above the pedestrian level of its trodden murder mystery snail-path.So Deathtrap seems to me as the inopportune adaptation of weak stage material. The cast do their best but they can't make up for the lack of effective tension, resulting mainly from too much direct talk about death and traps.

Ira Levin's Broadway smash comes to the screen with hardly any meat on its bones, a mystery plot with just a few tricks and twists but nobody worth caring about. Frustrated writer Michael Caine plots to steal the work of a brilliant young man and pass it off as his own; his devious plan may include murdering the talented kid, which has Caine's flighty spouse up in arms. The first act in which everyone is introduced is excruciatingly dead, with Caine doing everything an actor can to keep the pacing up. Dyan Cannon is miscast as his wife (she's too smart and clever herself to be passed off as a ditz) and Christopher Reeve (in the middle portion of the film) seems extremely uncomfortable in the role of the better writer. These three characters, and Irene Worth's bothersome neighbor, are so undefined that what happens after the set-up barely even registers until well after the second act has begun. Sidney Lumet's direction is stagy and fuzzy, the set design unconvincing and poorly-lit, and the finale is a total disaster. The actors struggle to give the script some substance, but with such thin material all we see are their laborious efforts. *1/2 from ****