The Tender Trap

With the wonderful cast that this movie boasts, I really hoped this could have been a better movie. Blame the screenplay. It's the tale of a an urbane, irresponsible and very single male (the perfectly cast Frank Sinatra) being roped into domesticity by a simple and sincere young girl (Debbie Reynolds, who is pretty stiff and unspontaneous here). The message of the movie is that people cannot avoid their biological destiny...that they are happily doomed to meet and mate. Fair enough. That's been the premise of many a great screwball comedy and many great movie romances. The problem here is that everything is so predictable! There are no pleasant surprises in the characters here. All of the performers seem willing and able, but the script and direction are uninspired. The character played by Debbie is meant to be as cute as a button but is only annoying, and Frank never appears genuinely smitten. Even Franks's rendition of the title tune seems careful and sedate. Our couple here seemed destined for a very dull life in the suburbs. (Of course, this may have been an image of love and marriage that American popular entertainment was trying to sell really hard in the fifties. Safe and yawn inducing.)