Adapted from a '50s TV drama, this United Artists release stars Ernest Borgnine, at the height of his Everyman abilities, as a family man torn between home and work responsibilities. His boss (David Brian, good) is a slave driver who knows how to exploit his cooperativeness, and his wife (Bethel Leslie, also good) keeps talking sense to him, knowing he's disinclined to listen. When he's called back to work prematurely from vacation and forgets to dismantle the rabbit trap he and his young son set up, the son worries about the suffering rabbit and tries to travel back to the lake on his own. Yes, the movie's really that small. There's a subplot about a va-va-voom but nice secretary who's having an affair with the boss and feels guilty about it, and there's a happy ending that really isn't very happy. And there's annoying, TV-sounding music throughout, and some dull shots of L.A. and environs in 1958. It's well intentioned and reasonably well executed, but also prosaic and up to its neck in the Everyday Problems of Normal People. That's generally not a recipe for exciting cinema.
Review of The Rabbit Trap
