Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

stevezodiacxl5 I've checked a number of reviews and haven't found one yet that notices that "Orange is the New Black" is taken directly from "Caged". The naive young inmate that turns hard from brutal prison life, the tough woman who rules the prison and runs a racket from inside and is toppled by an even tougher con with mob connections are only a couple of instances.Sure, women's prison flix are a genre, but the similarities are way more than coincidence. It's obvious that the series creators used this film as a pattern for the show.

SnoopyStyle 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.

sol- Imprisoned as an accomplice to armed robbery, a wide-eyed pregnant teen is gradually hardened by the system in this seminal prison movie starring Eleanor Parker. Disowned by her stepfather and with her husband killed in the robbery, Parker plays a character very alone in the world and while her transformation may be predictable, she absolutely nails it. There is a great moment when the ostensibly toughened Parker shows her inmates how to successfully perform a swindle and the camera lingers on her afterwards as she stares at her hands and wonders what she has become. Parker's most powerful scene though involves an innocent kitten caught up the madness of the prison bureaucracy. Such corruption and cruelty is in fact at the forefront of the film -- something that does not quite work as well as it sounds. Agnes Moorehead is a talented actress, but the film seems to come to a stand-still whenever her head warden is in focus. Moorehead's futile attempts to clean up the prison system and get rid of sadistic guards smacks of self-righteousness, and while it makes sense to "treat prisoners as human beings" as she professes, Moorehead drones on to the point that the message is as subtle as a sledgehammer. Her final scene with Parker is admittedly great though and allows the film to end on a potent note. The best element of all here though is the sound design; whether it be the typewriter keys drowning out Parker's words at the start of the movie, the intrusive ringing bells or the cries of the mentally ill inmates at night, the movie's audio design always enhances the story.

Spikeopath Caged is directed by John Cromwell and adapted by Virginia Kellogg from her own story Women Without men that was co-written with Bernard C. Schoenfeld. It stars Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead, Ellen Corby, Betty Garde and Hope Emerson. Music is by Max Steiner and cinematography by Carl E. Guthrie.Teenager Marie Allen (Parker) is sent to a women's prison after being found guilty of being an accomplice in a robbery, a robbery that saw her husband killed. She's also pregnant and will have to have the child in the prison. Struggling to come to terms with her incarceration and the tough regime overseen by brutish warden Harper (Emerson), Marie comes to realise that she may have to go through a major character transformation to survive.Unfairly tagged as camp and sounding on synopsis like what would become a cheese laden staple of women's prison movies, Caged is actually rather powerful film making. The deconstruction and subsequent transformation of a young woman who clearly doesn't belong behind those walls, is bleakly told. The prison is a foreboding place, the lady character's reactions to their surroundings and way of life are emotionally charged.Frank in its portrayal of prison life back then, but sly with its insinuations of sexual proclivities and criminal doings on the inside, the writing has a crafty edge most befitting the sombre tone that pervades the picture. Parker leads off the list of great performances to bring the drama to life, and with Guthrie's black and white photography superbly emphasising claustrophobia and pungent emotional turmoil, it rounds out as a thoroughly gripping piece of film. With an ending that's appropriately biting as well. 7.5/10