Codicia

This powerful film by Max Ophuls (who was billed for this and other American films as Max Opuls, strangely enough), is all about Howard Hughes, though not by name of course. The tall, looming and psychopathic presence of a gloom-ridden Robert Ryan dominates this film. He is the multi-millionaire control freak who either has to own and control everyone or if he cannot, then he must destroy them. Ryan is totally convincing as this appalling character, but then everyone in Hollywood knew all about Howard Hughes, knew just what he was like, and gleefully knew how to portray him as devastatingly as possible. (Was there anyone who did not hate Hughes, one wonders. Here you can see why.) Into the psychotic web of the Hughes character (called here Smith Ohlrig) comes an innocent young girl with one weakness: she wants to marry somebody rich. From here on, Ophuls savagely attacks that aspect of 'the American Dream' which focuses on money. Barbara Bel Geddes, two years after her spectacular debut in 'The Long Night' (1947), here delivers another overwhelming performance as a sweet-faced and sweet-voiced innocent. And we all know what happens to them, don't we? They become victims. Here, her victimhood reaches unheard-of extremes of psychological torture and cruelty from her maniac husband. In desperation, she flees the marital mansion without a penny and finds a low-paid job as a receptionist for two doctors on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, using her maiden name. One of them is stalwart Frank Ferguson, always present in any good Hollywood movie as a support. The other is James Mason, thoroughly convincing (with the exception of his English accent) as the selfless and good healer of the sick. Mason falls in love with Barbara, not knowing she is married or who she is. The expected complications ensue, and you can imagine Robert Ryan's reaction to all of this. Things get very intense indeed in this noirish melodrama. It is very gripping stuff, well made by the brilliant Ophuls, and gets under your skin. One reason for that is it is not just a story, it is an attack on that monstrous product of materialistic obsession and passion for domination, the 'ruthless business magnate'. Having known many ruthless business magnates, I find them just as disturbing as the one shown here, even though Ohlrig is an exaggerated version. But the basics are the same. Ophuls has endeavoured to make this not so much a 'morality tale' as a 'morality attack', and he succeeds totally. The Ryan character may be exaggerated for effect, but he is in no way a caricature. They really are out there, and if you have never met one, lucky you.

Of the many European emigres who helped shape American cinema, especially film noir, Max Ophuls brought one of the subtlest, most elusive sensibilities. Caught reflects this elusiveness: Part melodrama, part romance, part film noir, it's an unsettling film that burrows into complacent assumptions about freedom and success.

Department-store model Barbara Bel Geddes buys the notion that snagging a rich husband is the key to happiness. Once wed to disgustingly wealthy tycoon Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan), however, she finds herself a bird in a gilded cage whose owner is increasingly jealous, abusive and frightening. (The rumors are that Ohlrig was modelled on Howard Hughes, much as Charles Foster Kane was on William Randolph Hearst.) Finally she leaves him to work in the office of a poor pediatrician (James Mason), with whom she falls in love. But she and Ryan keep drifting back together, in a love-hate relationship that grows ever more doomed and desperate (there's a virtuoso scene in Mason's offices, at night, centering on her ominously empty desk)....

This is certainly Bel Geddes' most complex and fleshed-out screen performance, but the script suggests dimensions that she only hints at; though the part wouldn't work with a tigress like that other Barbara, Stanwyck, taking on Ryan in an equal grudge-match, an actress with a mite more edge might have shown how the caged wife came to draw courage and defiance precisely from her position as a powerful man's wife. (Bel Geddes is just too wholesome and likeable to bring off this ambiguity.) And the heavy paw of the studio descends as Caught comes to a close: The conclusion is too quick, loose ends flap in the breeze, and satisfaction remains incomplete. Ryan's dynamo performance -- he could really make the flesh crawl -- and Ophul's elegant direction compensate for a half-baked denouement imposed by a craven studio, lest anybody take personal or political offense.

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.

I wonder if Howard Hughes saw this devastating portrait based on himself. Actually, the movie's Smith Ohlrig (Ryan) makes Citizen Kane's portrait of newspaper tycoon Hearst look like a boy scout by comparison. In fact, the great Robert Ryan is downright scary in the part, towering over everyone else and just as mean.

Also indicted are capitalism's commercial values as evidenced in Leonora's (Bel Geddes) unthinking pursuit of a wealthy man and a mink coat, for which she gets a real education. Catch the excellent screenplay's first and last scenes to get the rounded message.

Bel Geddes is perfect as the impressionable girl with good instincts, caught up in a popular culture stressing wealth as life's great panacea. All in all, her journey amounts to a spiritual one, traversing noirish worlds from lavish wealth to extreme poverty, at the same time, uncovering a new set of values more associated with the world's great religions than with symbols of status.

Surprisingly, the movie's dark panorama is rather poetically rendered by director Ophuls' famously fluid camera. There are no sudden jerks or abrupt edits to jolt viewers recognition. Instead, it's Ohlrig's dastardly behavior that leaves no doubt. In fact, I think the movie's message would be stronger were his behavior softened somewhat.

There are a number of memorable scenes, especially where the servile Franzi (Bois) torments Leonora with bad piano playing. Also, catch that beautifully done scene where Hoffman (Ferguson) delicately queries his fellow doctor's (Mason) relationship with Leonora, knowing that she's pregnant. Note too, how often the characters second-guess the motives behind what others say. It's an especially thoughtful screenplay.

Too bad the film is not better known. Perhaps it's because the central character is a woman, unusual for noir. Then too, the 90-minutes sharply question America's great secular religion—commercialism. One thing for sure— the movie's not a Howard Hughes production.

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".