Codicia

Barbara Bel Geddes is perfect as a starry-eyes young woman who wants to make something of herself. She goes to charm school. Who would ever dream that a young lady in such a cloistered setting would meet and be wooed by a fabulously wealthy eccentric!

"Caught" is cast in a unique manner. Maybe it was the director's lack of familiarity with American performers. More likely, these are the people who were most eager to work under him. Whatever the reason for his choosing Robert Ryan to play the millionaire, it was brilliant casting: Ryan was a superb actor. He was tall and intense. In his most famous noirs, he plays cops or military men. Yet the character he plays here is withdrawn, well-spoken, and even a bit effete. He's in analysis, to boot! It's an exceptionally good performance that today would win an actor all sorts of awards.

James Mason is also cast very much against type: He plays a doctor who treats poor people for little or no pay. (Light years, not just a bit more than a decade, away from his Humbert Humbert!) And Ryan has a manservant who plays piano and calls everyone, male or female, "darling!" He is played to perfection by Curt Bois.

"Letter from an Unknown Woman" is a lovely film and probably Ophuls' most famous American work. It'd dreamy, romantic, heartbreaking. "Caught" is very different -- I would place it squarely as film noir. However, it does not lack for his famous shots of people ascending staircases and doing other graceful things beautifully.

If only for Ryan's performance, "Caught" is a must. And there is far more to it than that one performance.

A young woman marries a millionaire but then falls in a love with a poor doctor. Bel Geddes is miscast as the woman in the love triangle. The role calls for someone beautiful and vibrant, but the actress is too plain and dull to be believable as someone who rich and powerful men would be fighting over. Mason is supposed to be American, but makes no attempt to suppress his British accent. Ryan gives the most interesting performance here, as the intimidating and controlling big shot Bel Geddes marries. It has the look of a film noir but it is really nothing more than a soap opera. Ophuls specialized in these types of films, but he can't overcome the mediocre script.

Caught is directed by Max Ophüls and adapted to screenplay by Arthur Laurents from the novel Wild Calendar written by Libbie Block. It stars Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Ryan, James Mason, Frank Ferguson and Curt Bois. Music is by Frederick Hollander and cinematography by Lee Garmes.

Seeking to make a comfy nest by marrying a rich man, Leonora Eames (Geddes) snags more than she bargained for when Smith Ohlrig (Ryan) becomes the man of her life. And then circumstance brings Doctor Larry Quinada (Mason) in to her life and things will never be the same again...

Psychological swirls a go go in this fine piece of work. Story was changed somewhat by Ophüls after he was brought in as a last directing throw of the dice. Softening the harsh edges of Leonora's original persona on the page, he brings about a sort of piggy in the middle scenario. On one side she has a tyrant control freak of a husband, on the other she has a good honest gentleman doctor keen to impart his love to her life. It sounds an easy choice to make, but circumstance, the vagaries of noirish fate - of life affirming decisions, doesn't make this a straight forward narrative piece.

Smith Ohlrig is based on Howard Hughes, who surprisingly didn't kick up too much of a fuss once the word got out. This is one troubled character, mean and controlling, superbly portrayed by a chilling Robert Ryan, it's just a pity there isn't time in the piece for more of Ryan's forceful nastiness. The best scenes feature Ryan, the shamble of the marriage is adroitly filmed by Ophüls around the gloomy Ohlrig mansion, with reverse shots, perception tinkerings and isolated shadow play emphasising the relationship from hell - the impact of Lee Garmes' (Nightmare Alley) photography and the art direction of Frank Paul Sylos (The Great Flamarion) also not to be under estimated.

Leonora is a well written character, it would have been easy to have her as weak willed and spineless, but there's a strong feminist bent afforded her by the makers, giving her some guts and intelligence to off set the desperate situation she will find herself in later in the play. Geddes ticks all the right boxes for the emotional requirements of the role, never over doing the histrionics. Mason saunters into the pic with a grace and elegance that made the American market sit up and take notice, a class act and he fits the role perfectly. Ophüls steers this one admirably throughout, arriving at a culminating finale that's guaranteed to make you have conflicting feelings. 8/10

"Caught" isn't really a film noir notwithstanding the dramatic scenes in a darkened mansion. It's more a psychological exploration of a gold digger's conversion from pursuit of the rich to love of the pure. Barbara Bel Geddes is very effective as an attractive but poor working class girl not blessed with beauty but guided by a desire for opulence.

Before she can meet the love of her life she allows herself to be swept off her proletarian clods by Robert Ryan who once again is nearly perfect as a character exhibiting crass ruthlessness topped off by a nice dollop of madness. James Mason is a very human M.D., far more likable than the saccharine-sweet screen doctors of the past. He's a pediatrician I wouldn't have minded having when I was a kid.

What is surprising is the ending of this film, one that would be inconceivable today and must have seemed weird to many, particularly women, even then. Of course I won't reveal the resolution but "Caught" is a film very available for rental and well worth the less than ninety minutes it takes to watch an excellent cast tell a good story.

Too often "Caught" is overlooked regards film buffs in general, and noir fans specifically. The director Max Ophuls is at his best, with terrific pacing and subtlety throughout. This is far and away, Barbara Bel Geddes best film, though she has stiff competition from James Mason and Robert Ryan. In typical noir fashion, "Caught" drags the American Dream through the tar, showing the American capitalist (and other diverse values) to be not-so-darned nice. In view of what was already happening, and coming down the line (McCarthyism), "Caught" was a brave movie. Special praise should be given the brilliant German actor, Curt Bois in this movie (as "Franzi"). He's absolutely perfect, as he was in so many roles. The ending is, to me, clearly a studio patchwork, but such is to be expected. Still, this movie is a "no-miss".