Well made film prison film and a must see for anyone that likes Elenor Parker, who is good, but Agnes Moorehead and Hope Emerson are even better. Emerson (nominated for an Oscar) is brutal as she commands the pregnant Marie Allen (Elenor Parker) to scrub the prison floor when she learns that Allen is unable to pay her way into a decent prison job. The use of period-contextual prison jargon makes this film extremely interesting. The one-sheet from this film is fantastic!!!! It features Marie Allen's fellow inmates: Claire, a queen of the prison vice-ring, Smoochie - a street-lamp gal, and Emma, the prison matron's patsy. Finally, similar to the ending in Johnny Apollo (1940), and to quote the one-sheet, "She was part-good before-She's ALL BAD NOW!"

What stands out mostly in this movie you are about to watch or have seen is the story of innocence and all it represents being slowly and over time replaced with its counter-part better referred to as "loss" of innocence. The main actor Ms. Parker pulls it off quite nicely with the help of others who play their roles with realism making one buy the premises hook, line and sinker. Once you start rooting for the character in the beginning of the film, you cannot stop and whatever happens to her in the movie emotionally happens to you. This is called entertainment because it engages you. That's what us viewers and movie goers yearn for and pay for too. The fact that this takes place decades ago helps sell it even more as todays prisons wouldn't allow the innocence to linger or unfold but snatch and destroy immediately. The movies of the 1950's tended to put emphasis on storyline with an actor or actress that can deliver it thus earning a return for time and effort and perhaps either launch a new star or carry one forward. This movie has memorable characters and scenes which makes it a pleasure to review more than once. I have seen it several times and have it in my queue right now to go again. Note the power that some prisoners have over others and how the people who run the prison are always trying to catch up or compete. One is in control while the other feigns control. Who will prevail? Lets just say that only the fittest will survive. Have a tasty drink and a decent snack with this movie. One more thing. Place a premium on your own innocence and that of others. Enjoy

As others here have pointed out, "Caged" is considered to be the first true women in prison movie. Of course, being that it was made back in 1950 by a major Hollywood studio, there is really nothing in the movie that could be considered exploitive. In fact, the movie managed to pick up three Oscar nominations. Indeed, if you look at the movie in the eyes of the filmmakers, who clearly had serious intentions, the story told here is a fairly compelling one. It illustrates both the bad conditions of prisons and points out why many prisoners reoffend once back in society. The direction and acting are also professional and deadly serious. But if you have seen your fair share of women in prison movies that were made from the 1970s on, the movie has some extra interest in that it clearly served as a template for exploitation filmmakers. Many of the elements of this particular story were both recycled and hardened to satisfy the grindhouse crowd. The movie is fairly tame today and won't satisfy people looking for schlocky thrills, but if you are in the mood for a serious women in prison movie and/or want to see how the genre started, "Caged" does have more than enough interest.

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