TRAPPED

TRAPPED (1949) is the third Richard Fleischer directed film I've had the pleasure to view lately, thanks to TCM. In the case of TRAPPED, thanks also to UCLA Film Archives and the Film Noir Foundation for the restoration work done on this tough, tight little thriller. 

Produced at Eagle Lion (one of many minor studios in Hollywood at the time), TRAPPED may be a B picture but it's a first class one all the way. The film opens in a pseudo documentary style, providing the audience a brief overview of how the Treasury Department operates and the dangers of counterfeit currency. 

The story starts when funny money made from engraving plates used by Tris Stewart (Lloyd Bridges), before his conviction, show up in circulation. The T-Men spring Stewart from prison (a staged escape)  in the hopes that he'll be able to discover who is using the plates again. 

But Stewart's no stool pigeon. He turns the tables on the Feds and sets out to score on his own. He hooks up with his old girlfriend, Meg (Barbara Payton), and approaches crime kingpin Jack Sylvester (James Todd), about arranging a deal. Sylvester's willing to work with Stewart for a price. 

That price is $25,000 which Stewart plans to get from wanted gambler and con man Johnny Hackett (John Hoyt). But what Stewart doesn't know is that Hackett is really an undercover Secret Service agent. 

Things come to a head in the third act (as things in these films always do) with a well staged and executed climax set in a huge barn that houses a fleet of Los Angeles trolley cars. 

The title, TRAPPED, refers to both Stewart, as he's caught between the law and his criminal partners and Hackett, who gets to the heart of the enterprise only to have his cover blown. 

The three main characters are all well written and acted. Bridges is first rate as a tough, brutal, gum chewing crook, Payton is solid as a doomed cigarette girl and Hoyt (best loved by genre fans for his lead in ATTACK OF THE PUPPET PEOPLE (1958)), is convincing as a crook and a cop. 

Payton is of special interest here. While never achieving major stardom, Payton made several low budget films over the course of her short career. She was a decent actress but her offscreen life, filled with alcohol and drug addiction and numerous run ins with the law, led her down a path of self destruction that ended when she died in 1967 at the age of 39. 

TRAPPED is a first rate film noir that shows Fleischer making the transition from being merely a competent director to someone to watch. 

Highly recommended.