The noir series is back: Terry Teachout and I talk Pitfall, the 1948 thriller starring Dick Powell (by then turned to tough guy roles in dark drams) and Raymond Burr (before he turned into the affable champion of justice, Perry Mason). Lizabeth Scott is the femme fatale, but in a very interesting variation, and Jane Wyatt, before she became the adorable wife on Father Knows Best, is a tougher middle-class suburban housewife whose life is endangered by her husband’s restlessness. This is a movie about risk and insurance, about our desire for safety and the temptations of a manlier life when these problems first became apparent in post-war America. It’s as pleasing as interesting now–a remarkable bit of movie-making, done outside the studios, without a great budget, but with a remarkable insistence on getting the story right. This is what middlebrow was when it was taken for granted–serious storytelling about serious moral problems, with very good acting and no nonsense.