La Cage d'or

Ealing Equals Quality. Basil Dearden does it again with depressing noir ahead of its time. Like Pool Of London, it bravely broaches taboos ten or more years before most film-makers.

I bought a 16mm print from a seller on-line who bought the can of film from an estate of a projectionist who lost most of his possessions in a house fire. When I received the parcel in the mail, upon opening the box, finding the large tin film can was blackened from the fire, and opening the can the film reels on one side were covered with a strange white powdery substance? Not knowing what to expect, I benched the film and started to restore the print. To my amazement the fire nor the water the fireman used to put out the house fire effected the film print in anyway? After restoring the film print, I was further amazed to discover that not only did this beautiful black and white print survive a fire, but it was also a gorgeous 35mm reduction print both picture and track. It was a labor of love removing the white stuff from the films edge, but well worth it! For once on the big screen, I was mesmerized by the cinematography, the direction and of course the beautiful Jean Simmons! Another top notch British made gem! The next morning immediately sent off an email to the BFI about my love for British cinema from the 1940's and 50's, and how much I enjoyed screening "Cage Of Gold"! Best of all I took a chance buying the sight unseen print - and for only $9.99 plus shipping; I am now the proud owner of this fantastic gem of a motion picture from the British cinema's Vaults Of Silver! You can talk about your Blue Ray - HDTV - Digital DVD - Digital Cinema Projection, Bla Bla Bla! Still the best way to see a motion picture is on a film print, run through a film projector on a big screen!

I try to see the movies directed by the english director Basil Dearden, and I didn't regret this "Cage of gold" from 1950, real pure thriller. David Farrar as the blackmailer is outstanding (the phone scene), and Jean Simmons is real great as the victim. There are some scenes shot in Paris, it isn't mentioned on imdb's filming locations, but we can see the Arch of Triumph, place de l'Opéra, place Vendôme. And in the casting in the french scenes, we can recognize a future great french singer. Another Basil Dearden must see.

David Farrar was in some danger of being typecast as something of a cad around this time (Black Narcissus and 'Gone to Earth') and he puts in a good performance as usual here. There are also good supporting roles from some other stalwart actors.

But really this is Jean Simmons' film; she has a more rounded role here and to some folk she could do no wrong on the silver screen.

This movie wasn't all that well received when it first came out and in hindsight it isn't that easy to see why; maybe expectations were set too highly or something. It is a little slow-paced perhaps, but as others have pointed out it surely deserves a better score here than it has at present; most films with that ranking are stinking the place up something rotten and this film is certainly not in that category.

Well worth watching, especially if you like Jean Simmons; a solid 7/10 from me.

I am so used to seeing David Farrar as an army or police officer that it was quite a shock to see him as a rather nasty blackmailer and smuggler.Though clearly Jean Simmons prefers him to the rather more sober and down to earth James Donald.However Farrar runs off to Paris as he doesn't want a quiet married life and his wife is not able to support him in the manner to which he is accustomed.From then on the story is fairly familiar territory.It is entertaining but utterly predictable.Much of the climatic action takes place in a pea souper in London,the type of which used to kill thousands of people over the years.In fact given the uncertainty of the murderer before the end you might have guessed that the fog killed him!