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Caged

1950, Movie, NR, 96 mins

Caged: Review

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The best, if not the most brutal, woman's prison film ever made was CAGED, which offered no relief to its victimized protagonist, Parker, and no quarter to the audience. Parker begins as a sweet, naive, and generous young lady who unwittingly sits in a car while her scheming husband robs a gas station and is killed. She is convicted of being an accomplice and sent to a tough women's prison. Here the innocent 19-year-old is quickly brutalized by the crude inmates and sadistic guards, particularly the Amazonian (6 foot 2 inch) Hope Emerson, a lesbian matron who enjoys mistreating inmates, especially Parker, whom she throws into solitary and whose head she later shaves almost to the scalp to instill discipline as well as provide perverse pleasure. Even Jane Darwell, normally a kindly motherly type, is a vicious matron matching Emerson's repugnant sadism. Aside from the timid Corby, frightened of every shadow, none of the inmates has a smidgen of decency. Sterling, Garde, Patrick, Miller, Crossland, and Stevens each work their corrupting wiles on the young girl. To add to her misery she discovers herself pregnant, and later gives birth to a child which she is compelled to give up for adoption. By this time she is at wit's end, and Garde attempts to recruit her into a prostitution ring, saying she can get her paroled if she agrees to join a vice ring operated by a state senator, slimy Taylor Holmes (who made a career out of such parts, none more repulsive than in THE KISS OF DEATH). At first she resists, but after Garde murders Emerson, and another inmate, Michael, goes stark raving mad, Parker has had enough. She agrees to whore on the streets--anything to escape the prison. Oily Holmes arranges for her release, but the politically helpless warden, Moorehead, the only upstanding person in the entire film, knows her destination. She watches Parker leave the prison, then sadly comments; "She'll be back." CAGED is an utterly ruthless film, grimly directed by Cromwell and based on research gleaned by writer Kellogg, who spent some months in female prisons. Even Guthrie's photography is alarmingly full of contrast, and saturating the film is an uncomfortable air of claustrophobia. Parker, giving the performance of her career, earned a Best Actress nomination from the Academy, as did Emerson for her supporting performance. They both lost however to Judy Holliday for BORN YESTERDAY and Josephine Hull for HARVEY, respectively. This is a film that realistically portrays the fate of prisoners hardened behind the bars of crude prisons, made into murderous, calculating beasts while society remains unconcerned. CAGED is a shocker, far surpassing similar films such as LADIES OF THE BIG HOUSE, 1931, in portraying villainous females and a dehumanizing penal system. Not for youngsters or the fainthearted. (Remade as HOUSE OF WOMEN.) leave a comment
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