Unlimitedia Sick Product of a Sick System

Luecarou What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

jacobs-greenwood Because this comedy with music portrays the now dated male-female role viewpoints of the 1950's, it's a less than satisfying experience today. Perhaps the best that can be said about it is that it features the Academy Award nominated Jimmy Van Heusen-Sammy Cahn title song.Frank Sinatra is too old to play the swinging bachelor that attracts the prematurely "set in her ways" and too young bachelorette wannabe married gal that Debbie Reynolds plays. There is never anything that can remotely be called chemistry exhibited between the two in this movie. Ironically, Sinatra would be even older when he played a similar role in a much better film, Come Blow Your Horn (1963). This was directed by Charles Walters; Julius Epstein's screenplay was based on the Max Shulman-Robert Paul Smith play.I've never been able to warm up to David Wayne nor the characters he plays, and his "Indiana married man experiencing a mid-life crisis that comes to visit childhood pal (Sinatra) in New York" in this one is no different.On the other hand, Celeste Holm was practically auditioning for the Liz Imbrie part (successful thirty-something career woman longing for marriage but second choice for Sinatra's character whom she adores) she would play in High Society (1956) the following year; she's terrific in both roles. Carolyn Jones, who plays Sinatra's dog walker, is the most notable other actor in the cast.

atlasmb Frank Sinatra plays the part of Charlie Reader, a New York theatrical agent who endeavors to live the life that Hugh Hefner championed in the 50s. But he doesn't try very hard, because--he says--the women come to him. Quite a few films of this era featured stylish bachelor pads with revolving girlfriends.Charlie says Sylvia (Celeste Holm) is "special", a cut above the other playthings in his life. She plays violin for the NBC Orchestra. And she is a pragmatist, happy in her profession, but hoping Charlie will eventually see the light and want to settle down a la Adelaide in "Guys and Dolls". (Sinatra and Holm will pair up for "High Society", released the following year.)Longtime buddy, Joe (David Wayne) unexpectedly drops in to visit Charlie. His jaw hits the floor when he sees the beautiful menagerie that Charlie is juggling. The grass is always greener.Then along comes the fresh-faced talent of Julie Gillis (Debbie Reynolds). She lays out her life plan, which revolves around three children and an imminent marriage to some guy she has yet to meet.It's the cinematic cliché of the male dream (freedom) versus the female dream (matrimony). Although his film does not shine with production values or sparkle with the witty repartee we might hope for, it has some nice moments. The highlight is probably the title song, which is performed multiple times to good effect. Sinatra uses it to give a master class in phrasing and cool.

theowinthrop When Frank Sinatra's real film career (the one that starts with MEET DANNY Wilson and FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and SUDDENLY) got started, his comedies generally improved. Instead of playing the eternally naive heartthrob that the bobby-soxers supposedly enjoyed (but is actually quite annoying in films like ANCHORS AWEIGH), he found that his sophistication could carry a better style of comedy. Ahead of him was HIGH SOCIETY, OCEAN'S ELEVEN, COME BLOW YOUR HORN, ROBIN AND THE SEVEN HOODS, where he was usually in control of the situations rather than pulled about by mechanical plot twists based on his stupidity. And THE TENDER TRAP is an early example of this switch.Sinatra's Charlie Reader is a successful talent agent, and his success is mirrored in his apartment facing the 59th Street Bridge in Manhattan, and his colorful lifestyle of a different date with a different woman (Celeste Holms, Lola Albright, Caroline Jones, and Jarma Lewis) every night. His trade comment of "A ring-a-ding-ding" is not voiced here, but it could easily be said. Like his character of the older brother in COME BLOW YOUR HORN, he is inviting an old childhood pal (like his younger brother in the later film) named Joe McCall (David Wayne). But the younger brother in the later film is intoxicated by the glamor of Sinatra's lifestyle. Eventually the younger brother actually makes Sinatra ashamed of his own lifestyle as the younger brother takes it to extremes. Here, Wayne is in the middle of a mid-life crisis, and he's actually hoping to enjoy Sinatra's lifestyle, but as the film progresses gradually realizes that Sinatra's habits mistreat many women. Sinatra may be a great swinger, but he is something of a sexual pig.But Frank's lifestyle is beginning to show cracks. In COME BLOW YOUR HOME it was a matter of his aging (Lee J. Cobb fuming that he's a bum because he's unmarried and approaching 40). Here it is his meeting a young actress named Julie Gillis (Debbie Reynolds) that he starts dating. Sinatra looks at Julie (at least at first) as just another lady on his weekly list. But he slowly finds he does not want her to consider his other girlfriends, and he also wants her to be available to him. But his interest is tempered when he discovers she is only interested in him dating her and only her...with the intention of only marrying her.Sinatra goes crazy here - not babbling but losing his cool thoroughly. He tries to forget her quickly, by picking up one of the other regular girls, only to find that Jones has met a fellow who is going to marry her, and Albright has another regular date. Holms (as Sylvia Crewes) shows up. Oddly enough she is willing to accept the one sided dating system that Sinatra has chosen, because she is aware that she is now 33 and the chances of getting a fellow to marry her are quite rare. She lists the types to Wayne, and none are very appetizing. Sinatra proposes marriage to a shocked Holms, who (somewhat shakily) agrees. Sinatra decides to throw a huge party, even inviting his other occasional date Lewis to it. But in the middle of getting the party under way he runs downstairs and smack into Reynolds. She decides she loves him despite his selfishness, but he announces that he loves her as well...and proposes to her. She heads home, promising to see her fiancé in the morning, and he proceeds to wonder what to do now that he's affianced to two women.It turns out to be a disaster, but it is deserved. I won't go into the rest of the plot, but things do work out. It is nice to see Tom Hellmore, soon to be the notorious Elstin Draper in VERTIGO, in a far nicer role her. Also the conclusion of the film, with the now standard Jimmy Van Husen theme song being sung by Sinatra, Reynolds, Holms, and Wayne (with a sorrowful chorus of Albright, Lewis, and Jones) bears comparison to the singing by Cameron Diaz and her three bridesmaids at the start of MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING for being so fresh and unexpected. It was a top notch comedy, and another step upward for Sinatra in the rebuilding and expansion of his film career.

Lesley Jamieson The tender trap is a Sinatra film, a fifties time capsule. As such, it comes fully loaded with a swinger versus good girl mentality. The woman always wants the picket fence and the man always wants the ultimate bachelor lifestyle (in Sinatra's case, complete with sexy dog-walkers and cheese delivery). So with this sort of fluffy 50's movie, it's easy to scoff and call it outdated and campy, and neglect to consider the fact that perhaps there lingers in it the tragedy of the era. My apologies for melodrama. But in the character of Sylvie (the unforgettable Celeste Holmes) is there encompassed a certain element of poignance that is strange to find in such a film as this.In the midst of the predictable plot and romantic mayhem sorted out so simply, perhaps by fate, perhaps by unimaginative writing. But in Celeste Holmes is there contained something deeper. A regret, hopelessness, I'll-settle-for-anything quality of the middle-aged (or thereabouts) successful career woman who didn't go for a family right away, and thus finds herself condemned to either "Married men. Drunks. Pretty boys looking for someone to support them. Lunatics looking for their fifth divorce!" or a Sinatra. To see her sitting at a table across from Debbie Reynolds, 21, with all her plan figured out beforehand, claiming that without such precautions a woman runs the risk of spinsterhood. You can't help but feel for the spinster herself as she gazes with quiet desperation at Sinatra. Her last hope.Yes The Tender Trap had quite a few weaknesses, but in all, I can't help but find it strange and lovely to find such fluff encrusted poignance. Sinatra and Debbie were cute, but when it came down to it, Celeste Holmes was magnificent.