Nineteen-year old girl, pregnant and excruciatingly innocent, winds up behind bars after conspiring with her husband to steal forty dollars (!). Once-daring and serious female lock-'em-up does benefit from John Cromwell's tight direction (with visual echoes of Tod Browning) and several fine performances, but mostly it's another genre melodrama with all the prison-staples intact. Eleanor Parker (as the new girl in the cell block), Hope Emerson (as the hissable matron) and the screenplay were all nominated for Oscars--which is more surprising actually than anything in the picture. The black-and-white cinematography isn't bad; as for the plot, you've seen it all before. Remade in 1962 as "House of Women". ** from ****
Review of Caged
