I have no idea what happened to Joseph Cotten's career once the '50s hit, but he seemed to descend into B movies fairly rapidly. 1952's "The Steel Trap" is one, and co-stars his niece from "Shadow of a Doubt," Teresa Wright, now blond, as his wife.
In this ridiculous film, the main character, Jim Osbourne (Cotten), a man with a wife, child, home, and 11-year career with a bank, decides to steal money from the bank vault and move with his family to a country with no extradition. He researches this and decides on Brazil. He also decides to steal the money on a weekend so he can skip the country before the bank opens on Monday. Then begins the frantic preparations: trying to get passports, arranging for a sitter, and getting on a plane.
Through it all, Osbourne acts frantic bordering on hysteria, drawing attention to himself everywhere he goes. When he misses the Brazilian consulate and can't get his passport and his wife's, he smashes the glass in the door to gain entry. Then he starts bribing people so he can get on a plane that will ultimately take him to Brazil via New Orleans. And gee, he didn't think a suitcase weighing 115 pounds would raise a few eyebrows?
Well, here's what I want to know. After 11 years, what was the rush? Okay, they were going to start opening the bank on Saturdays. Surely there would have been a Saturday due to a holiday, perhaps, where the bank would not have been open. He could have leisurely obtained passports, plane tickets, etc. Or, if he'd realized the change weeks earlier - I make this point because the writer still could have built in a tremendous amount of suspense and things going wrong, but it would have been based on a stronger premise that made the character look less foolish.
Both Cotten and Wright were much better than this.
While the parents are out of town, a coworker and his wife visit the house, where Osbourne's mother-in-law is babysitting (he planned to send for her once he and his wife were in Brazil). They bring cherries, explaining that they had been given too many, and they wanted to give some of them away lest they spoil. They hand the mother-in-law a basket that would have taken a normal family of three or four six months to get through and made that poor little girl sick to her stomach - chronically. Fortunately, the film ended before I suffered the same fate.
In this ridiculous film, the main character, Jim Osbourne (Cotten), a man with a wife, child, home, and 11-year career with a bank, decides to steal money from the bank vault and move with his family to a country with no extradition. He researches this and decides on Brazil. He also decides to steal the money on a weekend so he can skip the country before the bank opens on Monday. Then begins the frantic preparations: trying to get passports, arranging for a sitter, and getting on a plane.
Through it all, Osbourne acts frantic bordering on hysteria, drawing attention to himself everywhere he goes. When he misses the Brazilian consulate and can't get his passport and his wife's, he smashes the glass in the door to gain entry. Then he starts bribing people so he can get on a plane that will ultimately take him to Brazil via New Orleans. And gee, he didn't think a suitcase weighing 115 pounds would raise a few eyebrows?
Well, here's what I want to know. After 11 years, what was the rush? Okay, they were going to start opening the bank on Saturdays. Surely there would have been a Saturday due to a holiday, perhaps, where the bank would not have been open. He could have leisurely obtained passports, plane tickets, etc. Or, if he'd realized the change weeks earlier - I make this point because the writer still could have built in a tremendous amount of suspense and things going wrong, but it would have been based on a stronger premise that made the character look less foolish.
Both Cotten and Wright were much better than this.
While the parents are out of town, a coworker and his wife visit the house, where Osbourne's mother-in-law is babysitting (he planned to send for her once he and his wife were in Brazil). They bring cherries, explaining that they had been given too many, and they wanted to give some of them away lest they spoil. They hand the mother-in-law a basket that would have taken a normal family of three or four six months to get through and made that poor little girl sick to her stomach - chronically. Fortunately, the film ended before I suffered the same fate.