Femmes en cage

John Cromwell's Caged is an exceptionally made film for the most part, a bold expose for its time on the prison system. There are many overt visual techniques which make the cinematography cloudy and suggestive, very impressive acting and a fair deal of realism.

Eleanor Parker fashions one of the most stunning screen transformations in recent memory. From the beginning, she delineates all the chastity and defenselessness of an injured yearling. As one foul interval after another follows her, that unworldliness rusts, her clean hands are continuously stained and she boils over into the vintage hard-bitten felon. If no attempt is made to adjust felons, all a prison is good for is to further indoctrinate criminals in their pegged rackets.

Of all of them, the most indelible impression is made by the gruff voice and towering physicality of Hope Emerson, who mustered all of the feelings of inadequacy one frankly imagines she suffered in her time to scald the morale of the inmates over which she abuses the power she sadistically relishes. That's not to say she is a "cow" surrounded by sumptuous, insatiable inmates. Cromwell indeed surrounds Parker with jowled, bug-eyed, bony, gnarly women. The corporeal presence of the vast majority of the convicts speaks volumes to why, in 1950 America, these women led the lives they did. And Parker, sent to prison, after a botched armed robbery attempt by her equally young husband who is killed, leaving her with an accomplice technicality as a curious wedding gift, is pitted among them in nightmarish situations. Her entirely unnatural experience inside begins with her discovery that she is pregnant. She gives birth to a healthy baby and grants custody to her mother to get the baby back after she is released, but her apathetic mother gives the child up for adoption for good because the child does not harmonize with the grandmother's habits.

Parker is then left with all the abandonments of the most deeply felt order: Her husband, her freedom, her child, her mother. Subsequently, one need just run down the characters surrounding her to map the bearings of the angle the drama will take: Manipulative and vicious superintendent Hope Emerson, hard-boiled ringleader Kitty Stark played by the boldly unglamorous Betty Garde, and corruption matron Lee Patrick. How does a sympathetic warden, Agnes Moorehead, match the impact of the environment she finds that she provides someone like Parker? The final handful of shots endure.

For reasons I cannot fathom, this film sometimes ends up on lists of the worst movies of all time; this despite Oscar nominations for Eleanor Parker and Hope Emerson. It has some of the best acting performances around, runs the gamut on "stock" characters, but well done and great black & white filming and lighting. It's terrifically engaging and one quickly gets wrapped up with the characters, some of whom are morally ambiguous and some of whom are just evil, and how they choose to cope in unbearable circumstances. It's a great movie and deserving of a lot more credit than it's gotten in the past. 10/10.

I saw this movie in Hollywood as part of the annual film noir festival at the American Cinematheque. This film has lost none of its ability to move an audience. Not only is it a good prison drama, but it is a good example of film noir moviemaking as well.

It was a bit of daring to show how corrupt the prison system can be and "inmates decaying" as one character put it.The lead character (Eleanor Parker) goes from being an innocent to becoming as hard as anyone else in the prison system due to the efforts of her matron and chief tormentor (Hope Emerson). It is because of this transformation that the film goes from being a routine prison drama to a first-rate noir thriller.

Jan Sterling, who plays "Smoochie" in the film, was at the screening and spoke afterward. She said director John Cromwell (father of character actor James Cromwell) did a great job of making you feel like you were in prison. She said by the end of the shoot, the performers felt like they were really confined. Parker, Emerson and the script by Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld were nominated for Oscars.

This film, of the genre, women in prison, or incarcerated.... is the best.. I cant understand why its not available on VHS or DVD !!!?? Brilliant performances by Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, and especially, Hope Emerson, as the prison matron... were all outstanding!! Parker & Emerson were Oscar nominated, and in a year (1950) which gave us, "All About Eve" , "Sunset Blvd", and others, that was no easy feat!!...Parkers beauty and innocence gave the film its sensitivity & vulnerability... Moorehead was also outstanding (as always) but Emerson defined the role of prison matron.. forever!!.wow what a monster....!!! what a performance.. !!watch for the lesbian moments as Emerson attempts to control the "girls" esp. Parker.. Nice moments by Gertrude Hoffmann (later Mrs Odettes in TVs "My Little Margie",) as the older inmate.... and the entire cast... a gem... dont miss.... and please reissue on video......

"Caged" is the rare kind of movie that works both as a film to take seriously and as a camp classic.

Eleanor Parker plays Marie Allen, a naive 19-year-old who goes to prison as an accomplice in an armed robbery staged by her loser husband. She doesn't really belong there, but despite the efforts of the prison administrator (Agnes Moorehead) to help her get paroled, she remains locked up, only to be turned into a jaded criminal by the very institution that's supposed to reform her.

The film is full of rough stuff, atrocities and indignities heaped one after another on Marie or the other inmates. Women are beaten, subjected to psychological abuse, thrown into solitary confinement. Their heads are shaved, they have babies who they're forced to give up for adoption. One woman freaks out and breaks a window with her bare hands, and we see the blood spurting from her severed arteries. Another woman hangs herself. Presiding over all is sadistic warden Evelyn Harper, played memorably by the gigantic actress Hope Emerson, who abuses her power so egregiously that she eventually gets stabbed in the chest with a fork by one crazy inmate while Parker's character hisses "Kill her! Kill her!"

The screenplay tosses out one memorable line after another -- my favorite is Parker's departing words to Moorehead when Marie finally gets her parole: "Thanks for the haircut." But for all the women-behind-bars sensationalism, the film is no joke. It's well directed by John Cromwell, who clearly wanted to make a serious indictment of a flawed system, and if it's lurid, it's also effective. I laughed a lot, but I also found myself outraged.

In addition to Parker, Emerson (both Oscar nominated, by the way) and Moorehead, the cast also includes Jan Sterling and Betty Garde as two of the more memorable inmates.

Grade: A