It's exactly what you think. A high strung camp classic with Eleanor Parker as a good girl gone bad after a year or so in the joint. She's a babe in the woods brutalized by monstrous prison matron Hope Emerson. By the time she leaves she's gone from teeny-bopper to party girl, all acted out as only the hammy Parker can do it. Emerson is truly menacing, looking like a male wrestler in drag. Her bullying Harper is juxtaposed against saintly warden Agnes Moorehead, a bleeding heart battling the establishment and espousing a lot of mumbo jumbo about prison reform. It's not flat out awful, but this silliness is nothing to be taken seriously. Directed in the most straight-laced fashion by John Cromwell. High points: Parker attacking Emerson; any scene with Jan Sterling; Parker going for a parole hearing (where one of the board members un-ironically makes it clear he can't work his hearing aid). Ellen Corby, Jane Darwell, Lee Patrick (as Elvira Powell) and Betty Garde are great in supporting roles.
Review of Caged
