Fresh and Exciting

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

After vacationing newlyweds squabble and the wife drives off, her husband calls the resort police and reports her missing; she turns up two days later--accompanied by the local priest!--but may be an impostor. Mystery writer Peter Stone is unable to make Robert Thomas' play "Trap for a Single Man" into a convincing, satisfying movie, much less a TV-movie. Characters enter and exit the honeymoon house with stagy flourish, while the dialogue is heightened to reach bored viewers raised on "Columbo". Jack Klugman plays the police inspector with tongue-in-cheek, but hack director Glenn Jordan has Klugman and the other players shouting and waving their arms, like stage performers desperate to rouse an audience. Stone used the pseudonym "Pierre Marton"; it's a pretty silly movie, I don't blame him for not wanting credit.

A wealthy man is honeymooning in a small town when his new bride goes missing. The police are dragging their feet, but not to worry, the lady turns up, or does she? She says she is his wife, and everyone else is convinced, including the local priest, but heck, he recognises his own wife, doesn't he? It soon becomes clear the impostor and the (fake) priest are in cahoots to drive him mad, but can he convince the local detective of that? A plot of this nature would not work in the cyber-age, of course, nor probably would it have worked in the 1970s. Everything about this film stinks: the wise-cracking former big city detective, the script, the ridiculous twists and turns, the one thing that holds it together is the apparent plot. Alas, the final twist is so ridiculous it beggars belief and then some. A much better alternative ending would be the obvious one in which although his wife has indeed been murdered, the chickens come home to roost for the villains. Alas, the way it actually plays out is too silly for words.

This film (which was remade in 1986) is a very clever little crime drama that keeps the viewer unbalanced until the end.James Franciscus is a newlywed who is on vacation - and the situation seems normal, but he and his wife have an argument. The next day she is missing and Franciscus goes to the police (Jack Klugman) for assistance. But all of a sudden there is a knock at the door and Elizabeth Ashley enters their cabin and apologizes for being away calming down. Klugman figures that is the end of the problem, and leaves...despite Franciscus' odd complaints: he insists Ashley is not his missing wife. But she insists he's just kidding, and Klugman, shrugging, just leaves. As soon as he does Ashley turns on Franciscus with demands for a huge sum of money for her silence - otherwise she will reveal to the cop that there is something criminal here. Franciscus insists he's the one who has grounds for recalling Klugman, as Ashley is a faker and a blackmailer. And so it goes....the viewers are soon involved in this crazy mystery as we try to find out what Ashley's crazy extortion scheme is, whether Franciscus will be able to prove she's a fake and a criminal, and whether the bored and matter-of-fact Klugman will ever get it into his head that he has not found an open and shut case but a complicated mystery here. Or is Klugman aware of it...in fact, what is his game?Rarely shown on television it is certainly worthwhile catching, with it's three leads keeping the level of suspense up until the unexpected conclusion. Certainly one television mystery that worked.

I love this movie! It is very rarely seen, however. I've seen it once and wish it were available on video. It's a wonderful mystery that I promise you will never figure out. A real plot twister, it will make you sit on the edge of your seat.The acting is great on all fronts. You'll always be guessing, wondering and halfway not wanting the film to end because it is so good. I could watch this movie in its entirety and sit right back down and watch it again. Don't miss this one, it's great!