Today the noir world has learned the passing of film-noir legend Lizabeth Scott. Read the LA Times report here:

http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-lizabeth-scott-20150206-story.html

Lizabeth was in many film-noir movies and stared with all the big names.  We will be looking at more of her movies on this blog soon.  When I saw the news I checked my DVR for a classic movie with Lizabeth in it to review tonight in her honor.

Pitfall came up, so here is my review.

Scott starts as our femme fatale alongside Dick Powell in this film from 1948.  Right away I can’t believe how much Scott’s voice sounds like Lauren Bacall.  According to the LA Times, Scott was often compared to Bacall because of their similar look and voice. This movie has a great little plot and kind of ends where most films of this time would have started.  I don’t want to spoil the story so I will stop there.  I watched this on TCM and Robert Osborne had a very interesting story about how this movie was almost not released.  According to the movie code at the time a bad guy can be an adulterer, but a good guy could not be one.  This movie has that situation and director André De Toth used some sneaky tactics with the executives of the studio to show their hypocrisy.  This film is based on a book by Jay Dratler, an author that looks to have much success as a screenwriter.  I looked this book up on Goodreads and nobody has read it on there!  I took a quick look and Barns and Nobel had no copy available.  Has anyone out there read this book? The other high spot of this movie is Raymond Burr as a ex-cop, private investigator.  He really has some presence in this part and you can see his star rising in this movie.

R.I.P. Lizabeth Scott, I look forward to watching more of her work, hope you do the same.