The Steel Trap is a 1952 American film noir written and directed by Andrew L. Stone and starring Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright and Jonathan Hale.

He tells his wife Laurie (Teresa Wright) that the bank is sending him to Rio de Janeiro on business and he wants her and their daughter to travel with him.

With his inside knowledge and trusted position, the theft from the bank vault is simple enough, though time-sensitive and stressful; but the travel logistics are difficult.

At this point an airline employee, made suspicious by Jim's urgent manner and very heavy baggage, tips off a customs officer.

[3][5] Cotten also starred in A Blueprint for Murder (1953), with Jean Peters and Gary Merrill, a thriller noir also directed by Andrew L. Stone.

When the film was released, The New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther offered qualified praise, writing, "The Steel Trap, which came to Loew's State yesterday, is a straight exercise in the build-up of cold, agonizing suspense ... As a purely contrived generation of runaway anxiety, this little melodrama amounts to a skillful and no-lost-motion job—so long as the innocent observer doesn't stop to think and check up.

"[6] Variety magazine wrote of the film, "Andrew Stone’s direction of his own story emphasizes suspense that is leavened with welcome chuckles of relief in telling the improbable but entertaining events.