Woman Trap (1929) User Reviews (5)

Hal Skelly's tour de force, but you might not want to travel.

[arthursward · 29 October 2002]

As the Paramountain fades into the credits, a disturbing music theme underscores the credits. It's a good riff, but clearly at odds with the mood of the opening.

Hal Skelly is Sergeant Dan Malone (Irish cop, now that's original) walking the beat in some downtown. A horsedrawn milk wagon goes by. At a police call box, Malone relates his handling of disturbances to headquarters. Caught the kid that stole the milk, made him return it, then stole a quart for him 'cause "he was thirsty". His sidekick, Watts, played by William B. Davidson, expounds his theory that juvenile crime is exacerbated by unsupervised hangouts. Malone is stepping on cracks in the sidewalk like some hopscotch participant. Director Wellman keeps the action flowing, dollying his camera around a corner and down the street. [This was "Wild Bill's" 3rd talkie for 1929] A fight is quelled by Malone bonking the two guys heads together then kicking them in the pants. He is carefree.

A fellow officer tells Malone he just caught his brother, and Eddie Evans, drunk and up to no good. Now, an astute viewer might have glanced at the credits and noticed the source material is Edwin Burke's "Brothers", and thereby be forewarned. Dan goes upstairs and engages in playful banter with his mother. Watts goes to Eddie Evans' parents. A firey Evelyn Brent, playing (Kitty), Eddie's defensive sister, springs at Watts. She starts hot and is just warming up. Each family blames the other, and a life changing moment will send Malone into a get tough on crime mode. With each turn of the script's page, the drama grows grimmer.

As Malone's get tough policy gains him promotions, the liability of his brother weighs heavier upon him. A woman's wrath will spring the 'Woman Trap'. When the last reel unspools, the wide open mood of the first has steadily closed in to the point of claustrophobia. Malone has morphed into someone else.

I found the conclusion personally unsatisfying. The music under the opening credits fits here. But if you ever wondered about Hal Skelly's acting chops, they're all here.

Probably hot in 1929, but 90 years later, it feels like an ice tomb.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 17 June 2019]

Some early talkies snap, crackle and pop off the screen, being brilliant in the way that they hold up. However in the case of this early talkie, it is necessary to find a better-than-average print because certain ones crackle yes, but that is not in a good way. It's a decent story, a conflict between two brothers (cop Hal Skelly and gangster Chester Morris and the friction that explodes even more when because of their animosity, their mother ends up blind. Evelyn Brent is memorable in a showy, brief role as a gangster'soll who sets up further friction between the two brothers out of vengeance.

The film print I found looks like it was filmed through a telescope and features a distracting blue tint. Available prints also have varying lengths which makes the continuity often a bit sketchy. In spite of how slow it moves, it is surprisingly violent and tails in some very powerful human terms as to why siblings don't always get along and the impact that it has on everybody around them. Performances are a mixture of stagy (Skelly), intense (Morris) and over-the-top (Brent), making it a mixed bag that I most likely won't revisit.

Two New Stars on the Rise!!

[kidboots · 7/10 · 6 August 2013]

In 1929 they were - Chester Morris had just appeared in the sensational "Alibi" and was still seen as a psychotic heavy but 1930's "The Big House" plus a winning personality would soon show the public that he was an actor with many strings to his bow. Hal Skelly was also thought to be an actor who was going places. He was, at that time, the toast of Broadway for his performance as "Skid" the clown who hit the gutter in "Burlesque" and was bought to the screen by Paramount who filmed it as "Dance of Life" with the gorgeous Nancy Carroll. But Skelly didn't have the versatility that Morris did, or wasn't really given the opportunity, like Morris, to diversify and 1930 saw him playing much the same sort of character with "Behind the Mask" and "Men Are Like That" until he was suddenly killed in a car crash in 1934.

He has the lead role of Officer Dan Malone, a knockabout cop - the kind who finds a kid swiping a quart of milk and turns a blind eye - "after all the kid was thirsty"!! He makes no arrests, much to the frustration of his partner, preferring to offer advice and friendship. In fact the first half is pretty wishy washy - just who are the bad guys?? Kitty Evans (Evelyn Brent) blames Dan's "bad penny" brother for leading her impressionable brother Eddie (Leslie Fenton) astray but Dan is convinced Eddie is the brains behind the bootlegging racket and Ray (Morris) is just an innocent bystander - in reality both are in it up to their necks!!

When Mother Malone is left blind after an accident Dan goes to pieces but rallies to declare an all out war on hoodlums. This is a bit hard to swallow - Skelly laid back for the first half hour now reinvents himself as a hardliner!! After a couple of years Kitty's prophesy comes to pass - Eddie is now a slickly dressed bootlegger and Ray, having left the town, is now serving time for armed robbery.

Best performance in the film is Evelyn Brent's - she doesn't figure much in the action but her few scenes are really dynamic and lift what is really a pretty static movie. Yes there is a bomb blast and a shoot out but that comes in the last 10 minutes!! Her Kitty turns harder (if that's possible) as the film progresses (which makes the ending pretty unbelievable) - instead of marrying Dan, she blames him for his hounding of Eddie which sees the latter being hung on circumstantial evidence. She vows to get even and finds her chance when Ray, now a desperate escapee, contacts her and begs her to set up a meeting with Dan.

Chester Morris makes the most of his role with his charm and kidding making Ray the most likable character in the film. I don't really agree with the other reviewer, I think the vibrancy of Brent and Morris put Skelly in the shade. Leslie Fenton had been in films since the mid 1920s, usually playing bland leading men, often being paired with Madge Bellamy ("Lazybones", "Sandy") until talkies came along and rejuvenated his career as a dapper crook ("The Public Enemy"). Virginia Bruce also has a bit as an uncaring nurse and I still can't figure out the title - unless it is the tiny bit at the end!!

Wellman On Top of His Game in 1929!

[JohnHowardReid · 10/10 · 13 May 2010]

At least one masterful director was not fazed by the introduction of sound. His name: William A. Wellman. Woman Trap (1929) is a wonderful example of his seemingly facile yet remarkably skillful and highly inventive style. The plot would seem fairly routine but Wellman has unobtrusively packed so many telling touches into the story's fabric that it comes across with surprising force. Of course, some of the action is obvious – the dynamited building exploding into the camera; the shoot-out in the freight elevator when the participants are hidden because the lift gets stuck halfway; the foreground consistently exploding with street and hospital argon as the main players struggle to come to terms with some tragedy – but much of the movie's relentlessly downbeat mood and slum-living vitality is also enhanced through the fine performances Wellman has induced from his lead players. Hal Skelly, cast against type as the never-you-mind live-and-let-live, who gaily hop-scotches in the gutter, but then transforms into a zero-tolerance monster, imparts his Dan Malone to the audience in a seemingly effortless interpretation. He rightly dominates the movie, although Evelyn Brent as the good-girl floozy who finally manages to out-smart herself, would have run Skelly close had her part been larger. Chester Morris is effective as the heavy, Effie Ellsler is okay as the mum of all sorrows. Leslie Fenton (later a director) makes a few waves as Brent's brother; and if you look hard, you may spot Joseph L. Mankiewicz moonlighting as a reporter. Wellman's assistant director, as usual, was Charles Barton.

This One Moves!

[boblipton · 9/10 · 4 February 2021]

Hal Skelly is a tough, honest police captain. Chester Morris is a bootlegger. They are brothers. Evelyn Brent is the sister of Skelly's ex-partner, and she wants revenge against him, so she helps Morris escape from the cops.

Two brothers on opposite sides of the law was not a new theme for gangster films even then, but here we are in the early days of sound pictures, and director William Wellman pulls out all stops in making this one move: a wall of roaring background noises, moving cameras, actors who step on each others' lines makes this a fast and thrilling picture.

That's not to say there are problems with its age. The sound equipment was not advanced, and some of the lines are faint...although to me that made things move even more faster, demanding my attention. The three leads are terrific. If you have a taste for old movies, this is a fine one to satisfy your appetite.