The Tender Trap | |
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Directed by | Charles Walters |
Written by | Julius J. Epstein |
Based on | The Tender Trap 1954 play by Max Shulman Robert Paul Smith |
Produced by | Lawrence Weingarten |
Starring | Frank Sinatra Debbie Reynolds David Wayne Celeste Holm |
Cinematography | Paul C. Vogel |
Edited by | John D. Dunning |
Music by | Jeff Alexander |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
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Running time | 111 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $1,274,000[1] |
Box office | $4,495,000[1][2] |
The Tender Trap is a 1955 American comedy film starring Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, David Wayne, and Celeste Holm. Directed by Charles Walters, the CinemaScope Eastman Color production was based on the 1954 play The Tender Trap by Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith.
It marked Sinatra's return to MGM some six years after On the Town. A second film under a new contract with the studio, Guys and Dolls, was actually released ahead of The Tender Trap by one day on November 3, 1955.
The film earned an Oscar nomination in the category of Best Original Song for "(Love Is) the Tender Trap" (music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Sammy Cahn). The song proved a hit for Sinatra, one he would continue to sing throughout his career. It is performed in a pre-credits sequence by Sinatra, sung in the film by Reynolds in a lackluster version that Sinatra corrects, again by Reynolds in an improved version during a stage rehearsal, and yet again at the end of the film by Sinatra, Reynolds, Holm and Wayne.