The Deadly Trap is a 1971 suspense drama film directed by René Clément and set in France. It was screened at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition.

Plot

Jill and her husband Philip are an American couple living in Paris together with their two small children. Philip is currently an office worker, but he used to be involved with some shady organization which now wants him to do one more job for them. Meanwhile, Jill and Philip are having marital problems, which are exacerbated by Jill's mental instability—she has memory lapses and paranoid suspicions of Philip being unfaithful. The couple also has a neighbor, Cynthia, who shows an unusual interest in their affairs. One day, when Jill is out for a walk with the children, they go missing. The couple contacts the police but Inspector Chameille, who leads the investigation, is unsure whether the children were actually kidnapped or harmed by their erratic mother.

Cast

Reception

The film received mixed reviews upon release. Vincent Canby in The New York Times called it an "arbitrarily muddled" suspense melodrama where "nothing works", and that it "means to demonstrate...the limits of human patience." Time Out praised "Clément's nice Hitchcockian-flavoured style and deft use of menacingly 'ordinary' locations" but said that "the ending has an impact similar to the punchline of a shaggy dog story."