Very well executed

People are voting emotionally.

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The cast and quality black-and-white camera work would seem to destine this film for something great but we don't get there. The problem seems to be the storyline/script which is just too familiar and predictable. Glen Ford plays a fairly well-to-do cop who feels pressured by his barbie doll young wife, Elke Sommer, to deliver even more affluence. His partner, Montalban, is more directly avaricious. Cotten is a corrupt doctor and a very used looking Rita Hayworth is Ford's ex-girlfriend from years ago. Ford as usual, underplays but nevertheless makes you feel the cold emptiness and disillusionment of the character. Everyone else delivers well but I think we have all seen these characters, motivations and situations a hundred times before and the script does not give any room for interesting angles or surprises. We get a very dark (literally and figuratively) and gritty film but not something that is likely to grow on you. If this had been made in 1932, it would have been a far more significant film. By the mid 60s, it was tired formula.

I didn't have any idea what I was getting into when I watched this one. What I got was a look at Rita Hayworth and the signs of alcoholism and aging....plus a pretty straight forward police drama...with a decent jazz score.I was really looking forward to seeing Hayworth as I like to watch former stars later in their careers. It was painfully apparent that she wasn't in very good shape for this one. I don't know if it was the starting of the Alzheimer's she got or alcoholism but she shows her age in this one. She was easily one of the most beautiful girls on screen in her heyday but I guess we all have to age. Some just not so gracefully.Glenn Ford is OK in this but the story in itself is just so transparent. You can pretty much predict every twist and turn. I wasn't surprised once at any "moment" in this film.Too many stories going on at once with a very average screenplay tells you why this didn't get released on DVD for a while. It didn't make an impact back in the day I'm willin' to bet.Go with the user ratings on this one. If you wanna feel like a genius and predict every thing that happens in a film...watch this one. You'll be the next champ of Jeopardy.

The noir cycle had run its course by the early 60s, but a few stragglers made it through the gates before the 70s changed the way movies were made and viewed. The Money Trap is one of them, and could have been made, in terms of technique and sensibility, in 1956 rather than a decade later. (Digression: this was a time when a series of European "bombshells," most of whom seem to have learned their lines phonetically, starred in big-budget movies, in Hollywood's dizzy anticipation of multiculturalism. Here we have to endure Elke Sommer whose eyes all but cross in her attempt to pronounce English). The theme is the rot at the core of the American Dream (Norman Mailer's novel of that title appeared in 1966, too). Glenn Ford plays a police detective goaded by Sommer to a higher standard of living than his salary permits. He allows himself to be lured into the company of some very shady characters, chief among whom is Joseph Cotten, and starts his descent down the primrose path. Best part of the movie is the return of Rita Hayworth (Ford and she first paired, unforgettably, in Gilda 20 years earlier), as a blowsy waitress with whom Ford once.... Well, you get the picture. When he asks her how she's been, she grudgingly responds, "I've been around."

Except for the music, THE MONEY TRAP is strictly by the numbers. Third billed Rita Hayworth has maybe five minutes screen time. No matter, she bring what little class this movie has to the screen. My big question is, what is such a terrific cast DOING in this insipid junk? Drawing a paycheck, I guess. Certainly, Glenn Ford, Ricardo Montalban and Joseph Cotton (all then under contract to MGM) were strictly drawing paychecks. This movie SHOULD be seen a reminder of sexual attitudes to which we should NEVER return. That is, whatever males do is OK, but woe be on to a female whom "transgresses," PARTICULARLY if she enjoys it! Otherwise, don't waste your time.