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.
