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.

That leaves out Agnes Moorhead as the moral superintendent fighting against veteran matron Hope Emerson who brings her charges anything but hope. She's of the belief that the women deserve to be treated like animals, often passive aggressively being cruel with seemingly kind words. For newcomer Eleanor Parker, a 19 year old accused of being accessory to armed robbery, she learns a great deal in her stint in prison, going from sweet innocent to cynical as she views the shocking cruelties. Betty Garde, as a small time vice queen, faces her hatred of Emerson's Evelyn Harper with the arrival of higher class vice queen Lee Patrick. This is degradation of women by women at it's highest, with lots of hints of sadistic lesbianism thrown in as well.Terrifically written and acted, this was a star making part for Parker, already a veteran but much praised for her detailed performance. Moorhead is excellent as well, presented softer than normal as to increase the maliciousness of Emerson's vile matron. Smaller roles played by Jan Sterling, Ellen Corby and Gertrude Hoffman are other standouts. Wearing little to no makeup, Patrick makes her lust towards Parker plenty obvious. Unlike other women's prison movies, this lacks the camp quotient, although there's plenty of opportunity to make some of the more melodramatic moments into something humorous.Holding it's own nearly 70 years after release, this is going to be the film for which Hope Emerson will always be remembered. Along with Margaret Hamilton's wicked witch and Judith Anderson's Mrs. Danvers, her sinister matron is one of the best female villains in movie history. This made important points about the abuse of authority and the inhumanity towards inmates that makes no effort to rehabilitate those who have become desperate enough to break the law. There had been women's prison movies before ("Ladies They Talk About", "Sorority House") and after ("Women's Prison", "House of Women") that tried to limit the camp elements (and many more that did not), but "Caged" is the best of the lot on every level.

Caged is a taut, well played prison drama with Eleanor Parker as Marie Allen, a naive, pregnant nineteen year old who gets a stretch in stir for a small time crime. She struggles to maintain her innocence and holds onto the hope of an early parole and leading a clean life. A hardened inmate tries to recruit here into a crime ring on the outside but she resists until all of her defenses are finally broken by life on the inside. Prison life becomes hopeless after Marie's parole is denied and her mother refuses to care for her newborn, forcing her to put him up for adoption. She finally leaves prison a hardened woman with an underworld hookup waiting for her on the outside. It's a dark, film noir type ending for a movie like this- no happy ending for our heroine, even though she finally does get out of prison. There's some social commentary about prison reform woven into this movie. Agnes Moorhead plays the concerned, reform-minded warden against rigid prison officials and a corrupt, hard minded matron played by Hope Emerson (who made a career in tough woman roles). They make a good pitch in this movie, but progressive ideas in corrections were still some years away when this movie was made. We can only imagine what the writers of this movie would say if they were around to see how those reforms have worked out.

"Caged" is a gripping account of beautiful 19-year-old Marie Allen (Eleanor Parker), a basically innocent girl. Her husband Tom made the fateful decision to commit armed robbery, and because she was waiting in the car at the time, she gets charged as an accessory. She's sent to a woman's prison where she encounters a variety of cynical, jaded lifers, such as Kitty Stark (Betty Garde). The superintendent is a lady named Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead), a good woman who's dissatisfied with the system and is aiming for reform, but she has a real menace working for her. That would be Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson), a big corrupt brute.Photographed in an impressively stark manner by Carl Guthrie, "Caged" is directed with sensitivity and intelligence by John Cromwell, who gets excellent performances out of his mostly female cast. Watching the evolution of this central character is incredibly sobering. You feel sorry for Marie at the outset, and as the story progresses, it has a feeling of grim inevitability to it, as you see all that innocence start to melt away. If there's any issue that this viewer had with the film, it's only the way that it's edited, as it makes the change in the character seem a little too abrupt. Otherwise, this is a powerful drama. It's believable at every turn, if admittedly somewhat manipulative.There's nothing subtle about some of these characters. Moorehead is wonderful as the person most sympathetic to Marie's plight, while the 6'2" Emerson is a memorable force to reckon with. Parker is very effective in the lead. Ellen Corby supplies some light comedy relief as the chatterbox inmate Emma Barber. Also making substantial contributions are Jan Sterling, Lee Patrick, Olive Deering, Jane Darwell, and Gertrude Michael.Watching this one now, it's clear that a number of the women in prison favourites of the 1970s and 1980s took their cue from this landmark film. It may not be overtly sleazy like some of them, but it has a grittiness and truth to it that's hard to deny.Eight out of 10.