A gentle, naive, pregnant 19-year-old widow is slowly, inexorably ground down by the hardened criminals, sadistic guards, and matron at a woman's prison. Will she be the same person when her... Read allA gentle, naive, pregnant 19-year-old widow is slowly, inexorably ground down by the hardened criminals, sadistic guards, and matron at a woman's prison. Will she be the same person when her sentence is up?A gentle, naive, pregnant 19-year-old widow is slowly, inexorably ground down by the hardened criminals, sadistic guards, and matron at a woman's prison. Will she be the same person when her sentence is up?
- Nominated for 3 Oscars
- 1 win & 5 nominations total
Sheila MacRae
- Helen
- (as Sheila Stevens)
Gertrude Astor
- Inmate
- (uncredited)
George Baxter
- Jeffries
- (uncredited)
Guy Beach
- Mr. Cooper
- (uncredited)
Don Beddoe
- Commissioner Sam Walker
- (uncredited)
Gail Bonney
- Inmate
- (uncredited)
Lovyss Bradley
- Inmate
- (uncredited)
Ralph Brooks
- Man in Car
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAfter I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) led to prison reform in six states, Warners producer Jerry Wald wanted to do the same for women's prisons and sent former newspaper reporter Virginia Kellogg out. She had written a novel that became a Kay Francis film, Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933), about a doctor who bears a child out of wedlock. She had also written well-researched original stories that were the basis for T-Men (1947), about treasury agents, and White Heat (1949), starring James Cagney as a psychotic gangster. She spent months doing research for Caged (1950) at prisons around the country, and was even briefly incarcerated in one of them. Her research is evident in the script with authentic prison slang of the era, and details of prison life, such as the caste system, and the tedium of daily life. Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld received an Oscar® nomination for Caged (1950)'s story and screenplay.
- GoofsAn inmate, Georgia Harrison, gets hysterical and breaks the window in her corridor. In this case, the window was inside the bars, which is why the glass would be in a protected and unreachable position. Instead, the bars would have been placed first inside, then the glass further away. The glass would probably be re-enforced glass with wire or even safety glass. Otherwise, an inmate could do just what Georgia did, break it. Then pieces of the glass could be used against other inmates or even prison employees. But then if the glass was safety glass, the scene with Georgia breaking the window would not have been quite so dramatic.
- Quotes
Helen: [referring to a newly paroled Marie Allen] What shall I do with her file?
Ruth Benton: Keep it active. She'll be back.
- ConnectionsEdited into House of Women (1962)
Featured review
An obscure black diamond from vintage year 1950
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.
Details
- Runtime1 hour 37 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1
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