The Trap

I've got so many movies to get through on my DVR that it's not uncommon for me to watch multiple movies that have something in common, whether it be the same star, genre, or something thematically in common. One rarer case of the last phenomenon was a pair of movies that have mute women as prominent characters. The Spiral Staircase was scheduled because it was coming up on TCM, while the other movie necessitated my saving the post on it in drafts so that the posts on the two movies weren't scheduled so close together. That other movie is The Trap.

The opening credits mention that the movie was filmed on location in British Columbia, with the opening being a village near the sea since oceangoing vessels can approach. It's the sort of tiny place at the mouth of a river that serves the trappers and whatnot who eke out a meager living upstream and then come down to sell their goods once a year and buy the provisions they'll need to survive another year. One of the trader familes (none of the family members' names are given) has a father, mother, and bratty teenage daughter, who's thrilled that the family is getting a piano because the daughter really ought to learn cultured stuff like that. They've also got a maid, Eve (Rita Tushingham), whom they've fostered for the 10 years or so since an Indian raid killed Eve's parents and left Eve in such a state of shock that she hasn't been able to speak since. Meanwhile, one of the hunter/trapper types ordered a mail-order bride who is coming off the boat. But the man who ordered her died in the meantime, so she's being auctioned off.

One of the traders who's made his way down the river is Jean La Bête (Oliver Reed), who grew up in Quebec and lost both of his parents at a fairly young age, causing him to migrate west to British Columbia where the trapping is better. He goes to see the trader, as the trader has been holding some money for the Jean in escrow. Jean has come to claim that money, which really ticks off the trader's wife, as she'd been hoping to use that money to get the family to San Francisco and away from an uncultured shithole like this. Worse, she learns that her husband has gotten the family heavily into debt. He can't get any more credit.

Jean could use a wife, but somebody else bought the mail-order wife. The trader's wife, however, has an idea: offer Eve to Jean in exchange for that money that Jean had gotten back from the trader. Jean considers it a relatively fair deal, although Eve doesn't. Not that anybody asked her. But since she doesn't really have a choice, she's sent up the river with Jean. Needless to say, she tries to escape on several occasions, while Jean stops her. After all, it's going to be dangerous for the two of them at the cabin, what does Eve think it's going to be like if she tries to go off on her own?

Jean starts teaching Eve all he knows about how to hunt and trap and how not to get lost in the woods; this is important stuff for Eve to know if she wants to survive. Eve begrudginly starts doing her part to keep things running, if only just to survive and plot an escape later. Life out in the wilderness is harsh: nasty, brutish, and short as Thomas Hobbes would have said, and eventually that brutishness comes for Jean when he gets his foot caught in one of the traps that he'd set while trying to get away from one of the big cats that are predators out in that part of the world. Eve is going to have to take care of him as well as keep the cabin running and check the trap lines.

The Trap has pretty good performances from Oliver Reed and Rita Tushingham, who form the bulk of the movie's action. However, the bigger problem with the movie is the relative lack of action. It's hard to make a story about surviving in a cabin in the wilderness exciting. If characters are trying to go from point A to point B as in any of the pioneer migration movies, that's one thing. But winter survival? And then, the movie resolves its conflict with an ending that doesn't really make much sense. I can see why actors would want to stretch themselves with a movie like this, but the plot doesn't serve them well, which is a bit of a shame.