User Reviews

When the film was over I began to wonder. The story is really too somber for a kid's movie, what could have been an uplifting story about a family coming together to deal with the son's worry over a wild animal seemed to get lost at the finale. Father Eddie (Ernest Borgnine) found himself fired from his job and there was no rabbit to rescue. The build up required a more positive ending for this viewer, and I couldn't help thinking there was an opportunity missed, even if Eddie remained true to his principles.

The other bothersome head scratcher for me was the character of Judy (June Blair). That business of throwing herself at the boss (David Brian) a couple of times was just a complete mystery to me, especially after Spellman (David Brian) respectfully declined her advance the first time. Otherwise the guy was pretty much a creep, which many of the employees seemed to recognize, so what was Judy thinking? Better yet, what were the writers thinking when they came up with those scenarios?

Well back in the Fifties, one would encounter similar job responsibility anxieties and the stress that comes with it that you find today. Maybe on a smaller scale, but the picture does an adequate job of explaining things from both sides of the employer/employee equation. That ten dollar raise Eddie got for his promotion seems like small potatoes today, but it's interesting to reflect on how that would have been a big deal back in the day. Especially when a cream soda down at the Y went for a dime, anyone else recall something like that?

I don't want to sound too pessimistic about this film because I believe it was searching for a heartwarming message, but it seemed to get garbled a little in the telling. For a real Ernest Borgnine gem of a movie, one must absolutely see "Marty" in which he portrays the title character. That role earned him an Oscar and is an absolute keeper of a film.

Eddie Colt, a self made designer, gets an eagerly awaited vacation to spend with his family in a cabin near Los Angeles, where he lives. His young son Duncan is boy that does not spend too much time in a rural setting such as the area where he is staying. Eddie wants to teach him a way to catch rabbits that run wild all over the place without being cruel.

Unfortunately, Eddie's boss, Mr. Spellman, is a workaholic who demands his secretary to summon him back to work as the firm is facing an impending contract and the work is piling up. Never mind Eddie has not taken a paid vacation for quite some time, while others in the company have been promoted because of their education and gotten to enjoy time off with pay.

Most disappointed of all is Eddie's wife, Abby, who had looked forward the possibility of conceiving the girl she had always wanted and the relaxed atmosphere in the camp. Eddie is visibly disappointed but he goes back because of his sense of duty and the fact that a job like his is hard to get. After all, that was the reality of the time he was living. Reasoning with Spellman proves to be a futile endeavor.

In leaving in such haste, Duncan realizes the rabbit trap is still set, leaving the possibility of a trapped animal might die inside. Eddie decides to take a stand, after the disappointment he sees in his wife and son. Everything backfires as Spellman takes a different approach with his employee, giving Eddie a promotion and a raise. Going home to celebrate with Abby and Duncan comes with the realization that his son had tried to run away back to the camp to release the rabbit that might have been trapped. The fact Duncan lies to him makes Eddie realize that even though he depends on the job and the salary, the happiness of his family is more important to him.

"The Rabbit Trap" is a remake of the same original one presented in the Goodyear Playhouse and directed by Delbert Mann. The update uses the same script written by J.P. Miller under the direction by Philip Leacock. This small film, seldom seen these days, presents and intriguing premise: loyalty to a job and a selfish boss against his family's quality of life. Eddie has come from nothing and through his work he has risen because of what he is able to produce. Spellman has clearly shown he does appreciate Eddie, but he does not play fair with the man that has given him him his best without asking for anything. Spellman has no qualms bypassing him while giving breaks to the other men he employs because of their scholastic backgrounds.

Ernest Borgnine, not exactly a matinée idol, heads the cast in this enjoyable film that at 72 minutes running time turns out to be a rare achievement. As Eddie, Mr. Borgnine makes a case for the character he is playing with conviction. A young Bethel Leslie does a remarkable job as Abby. David Brian, usually playing heavies, is seen as Spellman. A young Don Rickles has a small part in the film.

This is another adaption of a TV drama redone for the big screen and starring Ernest Borgnine. On a vacation with wife Bethel Leslie and son Kevin Corcoran, Borgnine is called by his sister June Blair to return to work, ordered with threats by boss David Brian. Borgnine and Corcoran have just set up a rabbit trap and have left it empty for the evening when the news reaches them. They must rush back to the city so Borgnine does not lose his job, and this creates a slight family conflict and tension at the office, leading Borgnine to wonder why he was so available to his boss's demands without considering his son's feelings. Blair also come to terms with her own feelings over the office politics and makes a decision that upsets the family.

A simple plotline guides something that is much more complex, guided with a commanding but gentle performance by Borgnine and a strong almost ruthless performance by Brian. Little Kevin Corcoran decides that he can't chance weaving a rabbit in the trap to die and heads back to the camp, nearly stopped by a well-meaning but nosy woman on the bus.

The buildup of emotion and strength in Borgnine erupts to him finally getting the courage to stand up for himself for fairness and for family loyalty, risking a lot in the first place. Brian isn't a complete monster as a boss, rushed while under tension from the client instruction for, and certain keywords that he uses are important in helping him face the error of his ways as Borgnine sets out to find some true principles and use those to guide his son in his growing up. As the plot develops, the rabbit trap becomes a metaphor for several of the characters, and Borgnine goes out of his way to be freed from his own trap.

I remember this film being on Anglia Television one night in 1972 when I was thirteen, but didn't catch it at the time. In the intervening half century I've become familiar with other work by it's talented British director Philip Leacock, but 'The Rabbit Trap' has never to my knowledge been shown on British TV again. Now thanks to the miracle of YouTube I've finally caught up with it.

'The Rabbit Trap' is very much of its time, hailing from Ernest Borgnine's post-'Marty' bounce when he was being entrusted with sympathetic roles as an honest working stiff, and - like 'Marty' - adapted from a TV original. Leacock was renowned for his ability to direct children, and it's interesting to speculate how I would have reacted to it as a 13 year-old, but watching it now I found the story of the father far more compelling than that of Kevin Corcoran as the son; with the subject matter, alas, more timely than ever.

In 1965 a senate subcommittee predicted that by the year 2000 Americans would only be working 20 hours a week with seven weeks vacation. Instead, a much higher percentage of U.S. employees are now working 40 hours a week or more just to make ends meet compared with the 28 countries in the European Union. One of the many ways Hollywood movies gloss over grim reality is that everyone seems to have so much free time to do interesting stuff when in actuality less than half of the American workforce in 2015 used all the paid leave they were legally entitled to, with an extraordinary shortfall of 658,000,000 days unclaimed.

None of the previous reviewers mention that that Colt's boss Spellman himself has a boss called Cochran who we barely see, doubtless giving him even greater grief than he's giving Colt; just as I personally work for managers being bullied by people at head office who we on the floor rarely if ever come into contact with. (I work for the Royal Mail, which was privatised four years ago with the result that less and less staff are being kept on while being whipped to work harder and harder to generate greater profits just to go down the gullets of foreign shareholders oblivious of our existence.) If Spellman seems obtuse about what's really troubling Colt it's because author J.P.Miller frustratingly never allows Colt to get as far as clarifying to him that it's not the failure to present his son with a newly captured pet bunny rabbit that's troubling them but the fact that a living creature is facing a slow, miserable and claustrophobic death from starvation. That the trap eventually turns out to be empty is a nice touch, but immaterial, as the trap still needed to be disabled to prevent it imprisoning another of God's creatures in, say, a week's time (the same God that not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without Him knowing it). The 'End' caption that then appears on screen - as in many films - is in fact far from being the end of this particular story, and it would have been interesting (albeit probably very depressing) to have learned what the coming days, weeks, months and years would have had in store for the Colts.

Despite its obvious TV limitations (in particular, a very facile conclusion), the script still provides some sharp acting opportunities which unfortunately are not realized in this movie, except on a most superficial level. Thus Leslie's big scene, whilst still superficially moving, lacks the bite that a more talented actress (and/or director) would have brought to it. The most effective performances come from David Brian and June Blair.

As for the direction, it's all put across in an ultra-routine TV style with a whole parade of boring, and often unflattering, close-ups. Other credits are equally undistinguished. Production values, I would describe as minimal.