Directed by William Wyler

Late-silent movies with a few jarringly gratuitous talkie scenes are among the freakiest evolutionary specimens Hollywood history has to offer. Unlike most such films, however, The Love Trap takes a quantum leap in quality when it switches to talkie mode for its final reel. Now, this trifle about a chorus girl (the lumpish Laura La Plante) who escapes from a caddish high-society type (Robert Ellis), gets married to a nice high-society type (Neil Hamilton), and triumphs over his priggish family's hypocrisy never comes close to being a memorable comedy. But the minute director William Wyler has to stage a dialogue scene, his camera suddenly becomes alive to space, depth, and his actors' physicality in a way that anticipates the deep-focus dynamism of his mature visual style. You can learn more about Wyler in the 55-minute companion documentary, Directed by William Wyler, featuring an all-star cast of interviewees and a funny, leprechaunish "performance" by Wyler himself--three days before his death, as it turned out. --Richard T. Jameson