User reviews

At nearly fifty years old, 'Caged" isn't quite like today's women-in-prison sexploitation flicks--and that's good. But this could certainly be a prototype for those movies. Many of the same elements are here: an innocent young woman wrongly sent to prison, tough and bitter cons, unfeeling and corrupt matrons--there's even a shower scene! You'll have to look hard for any allusions to homosexuality, however; the references are so oblique that they're practically nonexistant. Still, this movie pack a wallop. It's effective and affecting.

It's a manipulative film but you won't mind. Eleanor Parker projects all the innocence and vulnerability of a wounded fawn in the starring role. As one rotten break after another befalls her in the joint, she loses that innocence and becomes transformed into a classic hardened con, a transformation greatly aided by the seemingly simple device of a head-shaving she receives from a cruel matron. The film has a plainly understood message: if no effort is made to rehabilitate inmates, all a prison is good for is to educate criminals in their chosen vocation, crime. That's another big difference between this film and the junky sexploitation pictures of more recent years--the latter don't have a message.

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......

This is the angry story of the beautiful Marie Allan (Eleanor Parker) , an one-mistake girl , the men betrayed her and the law forgot inside the big house for women , she can't afford to let stay at large now . We have seen what the matron (Hope Emerson) does to women in the prison , we have seen women tortured , sweated and mistreated and a sensational scandal rock women's prison .

This film dared to tell the whole hideous truth about brutal cruelty by a villain jailer . This is a new kind of picture , it's a scenario writer's idea (Virginia Kellog screenwriter's "Women without Men") of a women's prison , authentic experiences of convicts in a gaol that is a hell on earth . Screen's most gripping drama of violence and gals on rampage in prison riot . It's a story about it what happens to women without men , the shocking tale of one warden against sixty inmates . The movie arises a questions : Will she come out woman or wildcat? , is the coming out good or is the coming out to avenge the torments and terrors that make a jail for women a college for the crime? . Hope Emerson as a cruel , sensation-hungry nasty warden is magnificent , she organizes a crack newspaper campaign announcing against prison chief , the great Agnes Morehead . Former L.A. Times reporter and screenwriter Virginia Kellogg's exciting plot surpasses even ¨I am a fugitive from a chain gang¨ film . Virginia Kellogg pulled some strings to incarcerate herself in a woman's prison . She then wrote a book about it , which was a kind of almanac of everything she witnessed while in prison , then had her write the script , which was nominated for an Academy Award . Warner Bros has filmed with all of the power and realism at its command . The thrilling musical score by the classic Max Steiner . And John Cromwell, under contract at Warner Bros directed with genius . The picture obtained three nominations for Academy Award : the best principal actress (Eleanor Parker) , support cast (Hope Emerson) and the best original screenplay (Virginia Kellogg).

The film is remade as ¨House of Women¨(1962) with Shirley Knight and originated a real sub-genre and spreading several sequels , imitations and copies as ¨Women's prison¨(1955) with Ida Lupino and ¨Girls in Prison¨ with Joan Taylor. Besides , exploitation flicks as ¨Naked cage¨ (1982) directed by Paul Nicholas and ¨Chained Heat¨ with Linda Blair .

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.

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.

John Cromwell's insolently insinuating women's-prison drama Caged appeared as part of 1950's bumper crop (All About Eve; Sunset Boulevard; Born Yesterday; etc.). It holds its own even in that legendary class. With the possible exception of Gilda, was any film noir ever freighted with more innuendo? (And, given the milieu and all-but-all-female cast, that innuendo has a heavily Sapphic tinge.) One need only list the characters and the players to get a map of the direction the drama will take: "new fish" Marie Allen (Eleanor Parker); corrupt, sadistic matron Evelyn Harper (the 6'2" Hope Emerson); hard case Kitty Stark (Betty Garde); vice queen Elvira Powell (Lee Patrick); warden Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead); and one tough old bird who almost steals the whole damn picture ("one more like you would be so much velvet"). Cinematography is dark and evocative. Subsequent women's-prison dramas became little more than exploitative, porny rip-offs; Caged (despite a bit too much grey sermonizing on making incarceration more humane) manages to be a a stylish, engaging and -- without ever being grotesquely violent -- shocking drama. Too bad it has never (to my knowledge) made it to video; scan the movie channels and tape it when it crops up -- this one is for keeping.

There is undeniably some hokum in this 1950's crime drama, but this is still easily one of the best prison films ever, featuring top-notch performances by Eleanor Parker as the young innocent eventually hardened by the grim realities of prison life, and by Hope Emerson as the scary prison matron (both deservedly recieved Academy Award nominations for their work). This is a gripping, well-made story, highlighted further by moments of genuine power. One of my favorite 50's flicks.

Kudos to director John Cromwell for producing such a well-crafted, women's, prison picture that (Surprise! Surprise!) rises far above the usual pitfalls of being nothing more than pure exploitation trash.

As well - Kudos goes to both Eleanor Parker and Hope Emerson for their earnest conviction and sincere believability in the first-rate character portrayals that they delivered in "Caged".

This gritty, unsentimental, unglamourous, tough-as-nails Chick Flick from 1950 is, without question, the best prison film (focusing on women) that I have ever seen, bar none.

Yes. Caged is clichéd as only a prison picture could possibly be, but, with that aside, its cast, its director, and its screenwriter (Virginia Kellogg) were obviously so professional and self-assured about their involvement in the story that they were tackling that Caged literally stands tall as a shining gem of its genre.

From its despairing opening sequence, to its even more despairing final moments, Caged certainly succeeded in holding my unwavering interest and attention for its full 96-minute running time.

Yes. Indeed. I recommend this picture very highly.

P.S. - Think you're tough?.... Just wait till you see what happens in the scene involving Fluffy, the adorable kitten!

"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

This movie is probably the best example of the "women in prison" genre. It's a delightful combination of noir, camp and drama. Eleanor Parker gives an excellent performance. Her slow transformation from a naive young woman to a hardened prisoner was fascinating and very realistic. This is especially evident at the end of the film when there is the photographic comparison between her character when she enters prison to when she leaves. I also like that the film does not end on a positive note. It ends bittersweet. On one hand, it's good that she's out, on the other hand, you know that Agnes Moorehead's character has correctly predicted Parker's destiny.

Moorehead's prison superintendent character was excellent and is what keeps the film from being over the top. She remains the calm, collected heart of the movie. She's a nice contrast from Hope Emerson's bonkers matron. If Moorehead and Emerson's respective characters had both been over the top nasty, then this film would have definitely been more campy. Likewise, if both characters had been like Moorehead's, then the film would be unrealistic. Emerson's matron was so delightfully horrid that you actually cheer for the Kitty Stark character in the dramatic cafeteria scene.

Lee Patrick is such a fantastic character actress and she can play so many different types of characters very well. What's delightful about many of her characterizations is that no matter how refined her character appears on the outside, there's always a layer of trashiness. The possible exception to this from the films of hers I've seen is The Maltese Falcon. In this film, she's known as "The Vice Queen" who runs a shoplifting syndicate and ends up having to serve a short sentence in the prison.

Ladies They Talk About is another favorite women in prison film of mine, but it is more of a country club prison than the one Eleanor Parker ends up in.

No need to repeat the plot.

Catch that long tracking shot of Harper (Emerson) taking inmate attendance one-by-one. It goes on much longer than expected as each inmate gets a brief moment on screen. Importantly, we see that each is a perfectly ordinary looking woman far from the usual Hollywood glamour type. I single out this minor scene because it's director Cromwell's way of showing the film's serious intent despite all the gripping melodramatics.

What the movie does so effectively is combine first-rate melodramatics with a powerful case for liberal reform. That's because, despite its mission, the prison amounts to a breeding ground of criminality. For example, nineteen-year old Marie (Parker)"flops" in as a wide-eyed innocent but leaves as a hardened criminal; guard Harper's sadism and influence-peddling flourishes; day-to-day routines strip inmates of self-respect; the medical dispensary remains under-funded and filthy; while the entire package is held together by state politics, skimpy budgets, and behind the scenes string-pulling. Apparently screenwriter Kellogg researched her subject, so likely the subtext mirrors much of the reality of the time.

Understandably, this message part is over-shadowed by some of the strongest and most unusual dramatic acting of the period. Seldom has any film featured as many mannish women as this one, and at a time when feminine stereotypes not only prevailed but excluded all else. The producers went out on a limb with this one. But it paid off with two memorable performances-- Emerson's shambling gait and slow-motion cruelty, along with queen-bee Garde's sudden descent into hollow-eyed dementia. The results here are both exotic and unforgettable.

One scene has stayed with me over the years. Marie expects some relief as lights go out on her first night in prison. But then the real horror starts. All the pent-up emotions and adjustments of the day come tumbling out—the crying, the coughing, an animal scream. Marie hunkers down in the sheets, wide-eyed awake. Now she knows. There is no relief. Not even in the dark. The prison nightmare never ends.

This is one of the daring gems of the noir period before the Cold War retreat of the 1950's. Thanks to a powerful convergence of movie-making, the movie's as riveting now as it was then. Don't miss it.

The film I like to compare Caged to is not a male prison film, but rather to The Women. Although there are minor male roles in Caged and The Women have no men in it, make no mistake, this film shows a woman's world.

The world of the women's prison is light years away from those society Republican matrons of The Women, but in terms how they act it ain't too much different. It's just that things are a lot more raw than they are on free side.

The film is seen through the eyes of protagonist Eleanor Parker who drew a one to fifteen year sentence on a robbery in which her husband was killed. Due to the influence of the prison even with a relatively compassionate warden like Agnes Moorehead, by the time she leaves she's as tough a cookie as those she met and dealt with as fellow cons and as matrons.

Eleanor Parker and Hope Emerson as the wicked matron Harper both received Oscar nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. Parker lost to Judy Holliday for Born Yesterday and Emerson was beaten out by Josephine Hull in Harvey. Yet the whole film is so well cast it seems a shame to single out just those two performers.

Two of the most interesting characters were Betty Garde as a tough con who runs the cell block until an enemy in the person of Lee Patrick who is a society madam arrives for a short term. There rivalry unwittingly sets up a lot of tragedy all around.

In the pre-Stonewall Hollywood, lesbianism saturates Caged as it does in few other films. Hope Emerson is always singled out, but there are more than hints of it in the characters of Garde, Patrick, and Moorehead. Look also for good performances by Ellen Corby as the loopy murderer of her abusing husband and Jan Sterling in on a prostitution rap.

I think if the cast of The Women were ever thrown into prison as they are in Caged, I think the behavior would be exactly the same. They can afford to be more civilized in some of the richest acreage of free side.

Caged (1950)

A prison movie, and a good one. But there are the usual stereotypes—the bad warden and the good warden, the bad convicts and the good convicts. The hopelessness. The feeling of injustice. The one large twist is that ti's a prison for women.

The is a Warner Bros film and fits into a long tradition they have of social justice themes (the most famous early one is "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang"). So the leading woman, played by Eleanor Parker, takes on a kind of martyr role because it's clear she shouldn't have been sent to jail in the first place, and we pity her. She is really good at the innocent young girl (with perfect hair), though if she's trying to channel Joan Fontaine she falls a step short. As she hardens up through the movie (as the parole board does its caricatured best to be idiots) she gets no more convincing, though maybe a little more fun.

It's probably impossible to really pull of a movie like this in 1950 without ditching the censorship rules. But there was no attempt to make the prison actually horrible, which I assume it must have been, and it's completely unintegrated (all white) which may or may not have been the case back then (I don't know). The result is a kind of safe, and sometimes false, version that feels increasingly like Hollywood.

It's good Hollywood, don't get me wrong. The movie is one of the better prison movies from the era (and there are a surprising number of them). Just don't look for insight or even any level of narrative surprise here. Do check out another strong if uninspiring role from Agnes Moorehead, and pay attention to the startling, fresh performance by Jane Darwell (who I knew from the role as the mother in "The Grapes of Wrath" a decade earlier).

Scared 19 year old Marie Allen arrives at a women's state prison. She was sentenced for 1 to 15 years after her late husband Tom tried to steal $40. She is found to be two months pregnant. Caring superintendent Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead) offers hopes of probation in ten months. She loses that hope under the sadistic matron Evelyn Harper's cruel control. Her stepfather refuses to let her mother take custody of her new baby. She is forced to put it up for adoption. When inmate Elvira Powell arrives, there is a rivalry with hardened head criminal Kitty Stark.

On the surface, one expects this to be an exploitation affair but that's not the case. It's actually a serious movie about a young woman sent to prison. It is harsh without being camp. It's almost a scared straight and social commentary movie. Eleanor Parker does a good melodramatic innocent. This is good for its time and surprisingly has several nominations.

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.

With the film Caged, you're getting more than just an incredible tour-de-force from its leading lady Eleanor Parker. You're getting more than just a classic prison movie. This film takes a definite stance and proves its point. Eleanor starts the film as an innocent and lovely young lady, who only goes to jail because of her boyfriend's wrongdoing. But her time inside destroys her and corrupts her. Between a sadistic lesbian prison warden and the unsavory, unscrupulous inmates, Eleanor's life view changes. She no longer tries to see the good in people, and she no longer tries to do the right thing. She learns she will be punished for being honest, and that people are out to harm rather than help her.

This is a very upsetting story, and while I do recommend it so that you can see Eleanor Parker's incredible talent, it is not a movie I would ever want to watch again. It is a very gritty, bleak depiction of prison life. In one very upsetting scene, Eleanor is held down by her fellow inmates as her head is shaved. In another, a baby kitten is smuggled into the prison and later killed in a brawl.

Prison movies usually feature a scene where the lead character is up for parole and pleads his or her case to the parole board. In this movie, when Eleanor screams and begs to be paroled or else she will turn into the criminal that the court thought she was, the audience completely believes it is true. At that point in the movie, she has just a slim chance left of returning to humanity and civilization. If she stays any longer inside the prison, there will be no more hope for her.

Watch at your own risk, but if you do, just remind yourself that Judy Holliday won the Academy Award that year for Born Yesterday.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to an upsetting scene involving an animal, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

Nineteen-year old girl, pregnant and excruciatingly innocent, winds up behind bars after conspiring with her husband to steal forty dollars (!). Once-daring and serious female lock-'em-up does benefit from John Cromwell's tight direction (with visual echoes of Tod Browning) and several fine performances, but mostly it's another genre melodrama with all the prison-staples intact. Eleanor Parker (as the new girl in the cell block), Hope Emerson (as the hissable matron) and the screenplay were all nominated for Oscars--which is more surprising actually than anything in the picture. The black-and-white cinematography isn't bad; as for the plot, you've seen it all before. Remade in 1962 as "House of Women". ** from ****