La trampa amorosa

"Love Trap" offers a very slight - and very dated - story (the popular in those days "rich can't marry poor" trope), which moves very slowly, but it is a fascinating film from a technical perspective: the transition (at around the 45-minute mark) from a silent with a synchronized score and sound effects to a full-blown talkie is surprisingly smooth. The expressive Laura La Plante has an almost Chaplinesque quality in the dramatic sections, but she shines more in the final comedic segment, where she gets to turn the tables on a stuffy judge. She also strikes one great pose when she pretends to yawn at one point. **1/2 out of 4.

Pleasant concoction is a story as old as the hills of a family of snobs thinking the true blue girl their son marries on a whim is a no good gold-digger until proved wrong. A bit of an odd viewing experience since half way through the film it switches from silent to sound but Wyler's sure handed direction keeps it from being too jarring. It is interesting how in the silent portion the tone is set by shadows and the mood of a scene but after the dialog becomes the agent of explanation. It must have been a disconcerting balancing act for the actors involved but they handle it pretty well. Laura La Plante is enjoyable in the lead, a big star in silents who did make a successful transition to sound but moved to England shortly after this made a few films there and retired.

A real surprise and a delight, that is, if you enjoy the Cinderella stories of the 1920s. I always do, so long as they are nicely played, and THE LOVE TRAP has enough distinction to recommend it very highly. Charming and entertaining as a fluid silent, there are many marvelous visual touches, particularly the choreography involving synchronized taxi cabs. Unexpectedly, THE LOVE TRAP retains this graceful pace when the picture begins talking at about the half-way point. The second half is so engaging one really does forget that the first half was such a terrific silent picture. Star Laura La Plante is her wonderful, pert, pretty self, effortlessly carrying the silent style with a seemless transition into the heroine speaking the rest of her role. Of particular note and enjoyment is the handsome leading man, the future Commissioner Gordon on TV's BATMAN, Neil Hamilton. Though called upon to behave like a first rate schmoo at one point during the plot, Hamilton is a first rate smooth comedian, both silent and talking. For being a relatively innocuous "Cinderella" tale, THE LOVE TRAP packs in some fun little moments of sexual intrigue, such as when the snootie sister, Rita La Roy, tells the family she cannot be bothered with La Plante's sordid situation, and as the family leaves, she climbs the stairs, soon followed by a slyly winking butler.

The plot of this deceptively overlooked little trifle is the usual nonsense about a sweet young lass whose path crosses that of one of those personable young millionaires with entirely honourable intentions you find behind every corner in the silents, only to be entirely falsely suspected of being a gold-digging little hussy by his disapproving family. But 'The Love Trap' proves fascinating historically both as a relic of the "part-talkie" era and for its adroit staging by the up-and-coming young William Wyler feeling his way towards his mature style.

The first two thirds of this fluff has attractive performances in the leads by Laura La Plante and Neil Hamilton, while Wyler is already visibly attempting to find ways of extending the boundaries of the cinema screen through frequent use of pans and attempts at composition in depth. In his talkies Wyler abandoned the pans, which tend to jar at times, but with the great Gregg Toland behind the camera eventually came second only to Orson Welles as the 1940s' master of deep focus composition in 'The Best Years of Our Lives' (1946), which veteran cameraman Gilbert Warrenton had done his best to achieve in 'The Love Trap' with the limited resources then at his disposal.

Then suddenly everybody starts talking! The early scenes had all carried a Vitaphone soundtrack, and 'The Love Trap' had evidently started life as a silent, since there are scenes in which people speak dialogue which the makers haven't bothered to caption, as they'd presumably decided the film was going to go into release as a part-talkie and thus elected to keep titles to the minimum in scenes where the audience would be able to get the gist without them.

At this point the film seems on the verge of turning all serious on us, but happily opts instead for saucy pre-Code farce, in which Miss La Plante - mostly dressed only in her scanties - effortlessly and charmingly leaps the daunting hurdle of suddenly starring in a talkie.

The Love Trap (1929)

I wouldn't have troubled with this film except that it's by the most decorated and honored of Hollywood's directors, William Wyler. And the short answer on the film is that it's very good, worth watching.

It surprised me by being silent. Twice. That is, it begins with some scenes that involve music and there is a soundtrack synched to the movie--but not recorded when the visuals were shot. So the dialog is all silent with an occasional intertitle card. The reason for this is just that Universal Studios hadn't yet switched to doing sound. This was released in 1929, and "The Jazz Singer" was 1927, so this shows how it took some time for the smaller studios to switch over.

Further--like "The Jazz Singer" this one has a few sections with actual synched sound. It comes as a huge surprise, and it raises the movie to another level in its entirety. You can almost apply their voices by extension to the rest of the movie.

Even so, it's a sophisticated film--including the sound that is used, both music and some sound effects. The filming is excellent, but what really stands out is the superb acting--which of course is what Wyler would in part become famous for. The story is a simple one but a pre-code risqué one. A woman who needs money to pay her rent goes to a rich man's party to make a few bucks. And she's expected, somehow, to be available to one of the men, who tricks her, in all her innocence, to a bedroom.

So then it becomes a tale of morality versus money. And told almost entirely with gesture and expression. And filmed beautifully, with some absolute surprising turns in the plot. The last thirty seconds will seem a little convenient, but the rest of it--a real treat!