The White Trap *** (1959, Lee Patterson, Conrad Phillips, Ewen Solon, Michael Goodliffe, Yvette Wyatt, Felicity Young) – – Classic Movie Review 13,783

The 1959 British second feature thriller film The White Trap, starring Lee Patterson, Conrad Phillips, Ewen Solon and Michael Goodliffe, is a precursor to the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series.

Director Sidney Hayers’s 1959 British second feature thriller film The White Trap is written by Peter Barnes, and stars Lee Patterson, Conrad Phillips, Ewen Solon, and Michael Goodliffe. It is a precursor to the Edgar Wallace Mysteries series, but there is no mystery and no real crime either.

Lee Patterson stars as Paul Langley, who has just made another unsuccessful break from prison to clear his name of a crime he says he didn’t commit. He’s recaptured and to be transferred to another jail, Dartmoor. But now his wife Joan (Felicity Young) is pregnant with their first baby and he makes one more escape to try to reach her in the hospital where she is giving birth. But the police (Conrad Phillips as Sgt Morrison, Michael Goodliffe as Inspector Walters) are on to him, chasing him and waiting for him.

Peter Barnes’s excellent script has a complicated story to tell with interesting characters (and a lot of them), and a surprisingly dark view of life, reluctantly resigned to life’s unfairness and sadness. There’s no pat or cheesy happy ending here, just a grim conclusion. It’s not even tied up neatly. We’re left to imagine what might happen next. But, nevertheless, it ends very satisfactorily, just as it has proceeded. It’s great to have a film that doesn’t bottle out, and has no comedy relief!

The production is decent for a British second feature thriller film of the era, with plenty of London outside filming. Sidney Hayers keeps up a nice level of tension and suspense. The story runs surprisingly and Hayers and cinematographer Eric Cross match it with surprising shots.

Lee Patterson, handsome, athletic, quietly attractive, makes a lot out of the sincere but resourceful star role. The film is all about him and he owns it. Michael Goodliffe is, well, good as the thoughtful older, wiser Inspector Walters, quietly battling his know-all but knows little subordinate Sgt Morrison (an unusual and ungrateful role for Conrad Phillips, who is usually heroic and sometimes villainous, his strengths). Sgt Morrison is a bit of an ambitious young plodder, a copper who didn’t learn on the beat. He’s sort of the film’s villain. How subtle is that! We’re not on his side at all, as he’s getting in the way of the hero’s journey. Little known Yvette Wyatt does well as Ann Fisher, the nurse who tries to help the hero. And Paul Langley really is the hero, not the anti-hero, another of the script’s clever subtleties.

An extraordinary amount happens in its pacy 58 minutes, though there’s still plenty of time for quirky character development and tasty dialogue. Clever writer, Peter Barnes.

This film is not one of the 48-film Edgar Wallace Mysteries series but it is available as a Special Feature on Edgar Wallace Mysteries volume 2, released by Network DVD in 2012.

It was first screened as a second feature in cinemas in the UK in 1959, and then in 1961 screened in the US as an episode in the first series of Kraft Mystery Theater.

The cast are Lee Patterson as Paul Langley, Conrad Phillips as Sgt Morrison, Ewen Solon as reporter Jack Brunel, Michael Goodliffe as Inspector Walters, Yvette Wyatt as Ann Fisher, Felicity Young as Joan Langley, Trevor Maskell as Dr Lucas, Harold Siddons as Maitland, Charles Leno as Padre, Ian Colin as prison governor, Arthur Howell as prison governor, Helen Towers as Hilda Maxwell, Jack Allen as Dr Hayden, Gillian Vaughan as Wendy, John Abineri as photographer Bernie, Derek Francis as Mr Langley, John Welsh as detective, and Jill Gascoine as nurse.

Jill Gascoine’s debut.

Running time: 58 minutes.

It is shot at Beaconsfield Film Studios, Station Road, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, UK.

It is made by Independent Artists and released by Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors (UK).

Release date: August 1959 (UK).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,783

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