On C List of Movie Reviews
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Caged (1950)
Rate:
3
Viewed:
1/25
1/25:
Is everybody kidding me?
Three Oscar nominations for Caged? Ha! What a joke. So is the film. It's nothing more than a boring
melodrama. I wanted to see women beating each other up, grabbing their hair, and saying some of the
stupidest stuff ever. But nope...a kitten died for the wrong reasons, that's it.
Average acting rules the day. Eleanor Parker goes from a weak girl to a hardened convict, and I am supposed
to buy that? Of course, she never had her head shaved for real. However, Hope Emerson is fitting as the
matron, but it's ridiculous that she didn't have the warden's support; she would've been appreciated by Ida
Lupino who was meaner in Women's Prison than Agnes Moorehead.
One reviewer said, "Caged is to penal institutions what The Snake Pit was to
mental institutions and The Lost Weekend to alcoholism." Yeah, sure. What
these films have in common is that they're all laughable and thus not believable. Going camp would've been the
best route. Ditto for adding a lot of blacks and lesbians to the mix for the sake of realism.
All in all, Caged is for morons since they're unable to understand the following adage: "If you can't
do the time, don't do the crime."