Archival Print! The American dream takesa beating in Pitfall, a film that pitilessly delineates the malaise atthe core of middle-class suburban life with great"hard-boiled" dialogue and without recourse to Hitchcock'sdistancing ironies. Dick Powell is the cherub with a dirty face at thecenter of this cautionary tale about a bored husband whose night errantwith luscious Lizabeth Scott leads him to commit murder. In a happyending, "family values" triumph with a vengeance and Powell'slife sentence is sealed.