Deathtrap (1982)

Deathtrap is a 1982 thriller film based on Ira Levin's play of the same name.

The cast includes Michael Caine, Christopher Reeve, Dyan Cannon, Irene Worth and Henry Jones. Real-life movie and theatre critics Stewart Klein, Jeffrey Lyons and Joel Siegel have cameo appearances as themselves.

Sidney Bruhl is a formerly successful writer of Broadway thrillers who is trying to recover from the failure of his latest play. When Sidney returns to his wife Myra, a rich woman with a heart problem who is prone to hysterics, he tells her of his jealousy and humiliation upon the receipt of the first play of a former student. The play is called Deathtrap, and it is brilliant. Sidney's wife is horrified when he decides to lure the young writer to their East Hampton home in order to murder him and pretend that the play is his own work. But this is just the beginning of an intense game of twists and secrets.

The kissing scene between Sidney and Clifford is not in the original play. In his book The Celluloid Closet, gay film historian Vito Russo reports Reeve as saying that the kiss was booed by preview audiences in Denver, Colorado and estimating that a Time magazine report on the incident (which spoiled a key plot element) cost the film $10 million in ticket sales.

The controversy over the kiss inspired the Tom Smith song "Two Guys Kissin' (Ruined My Life)."