The Deadly Trap

The Deadly Trap (La Maison sous les arbres) 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

 * Faye Dunaway as Jill
 * Frank Langella as Philippe
 * Barbara Parkins as Cynthia
 * Karen Blanguernon as Miss Hansen
 * Raymond Gérôme as Commissaire Chameille
 * Michele Lourie as Cathy (as Michèle Lourie)
 * Patrick Vincent as Patrick
 * Gérard Buhr as Le psychiatre / Psychiatrist
 * Louise Chevalier
 * Maurice Ronet as L'homme de l'organisation / Stranger
 * Tener Eckelberry
 * Massimo Farinelli
 * Jill Larson
 * Robert Lussac
 * Franco Ressel
 * Dora van der Groen

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."