The Love Trap (William Wyler, 1929)
There's half a really fine movie here and half a very blah movie. There's also half a silent film and half a sound film. There's no correlation between those two pairs; the silent and sound sections both have their great moments. It's interesting that the style of the film doesn't change at all between the two halves. Aside from some silent film-style pratfalls early on, you can almost imagine that they meant to record sound for the first half but there was a malfunction, so they just threw in some intertitles.
Even more interesting is how so much of the style I associate with Wyler is already on display in 1929. I've always loved his use of depth in the frame — the way he stages shots in both the foreground and background simultaneously, letting the two planes of visuals inform each other. Many of the screenshots above highlight Wyler's distinctly cinematic, three-dimsensional depth, and
The Love Trap is a much better film for it.
I wasn't previously familiar with Laura La Plante (having yet to see
The Cat and the Canary). There's a delightful pluckiness to her screen presence that reminds me of another actress — but I haven't been able to figure out who that is. Maybe Lucille Ball? I'm surprised La Plante didn't develop into the sly, wise-cracking sidekick type (like Ruth Hussey or someone similar) as sound films took over.
Norman Trevor should have been a great character actor in the sound era, too — taking roles away from Lewis Stone. It's a shame he died just months after
The Love Trap was released. You should recognize the actor in
this screenshot as someone who did in fact continue to make an impact decades later.
It's teevee's Commissioner Gordon! He's just okay here.
The sound recording process at the time doesn't do favor to any of the performances, but it's a cool experience to spend forty minutes watching actors perform before finally hearing what they sound like. It's the blind auditions from
The Voice, but inverted. There was definitely an adjustment period, as I was like, "Oh,
that's what you sound like?! Hmm." It lets you experience a taste of the anxiety studios, actors, and audiences all must have experienced during those transitional years.
The story is enjoyably pre-Code, but also troubling in its gender relations. LaPlante basically marries one overly handsy lothario simply because he's less rapey than another overly handsy lecher. Or so it seems at first. But the dubious setup makes it all the more satisfying when LaPlante turns the tables in the end. I was borderline throughout about whether I could recommend this film, but the smile-inducing final scene really clinched it.
Grade: B-
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Hell's Heroespixote