old black kettle

CAGED (1950; d: John Cromwell)

I think most of us have contemplated prison, or at least daydreamed how we might fare in such a bind.  From an early age, the concept of restriction and confinement for wrongdoing is ingrained in us, and for many, whether born into desperation or given to bad influence, temptation comes easier.  In a sense, we're really all just but a jagged misstep or two removed from the grim milieu of state-sanctioned, soul-stifling incarceration. 

In 1949, Warner Brothers set out to turn the prison genre on its ear, commissioning a script for a realistic, socially progressive movie about life in a women's penitentiary. Written by Virginia Kellogg (from the story, "Women Without Men", by Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld) and originally intended as a vehicle for Bette Davis and Joan Crawford (which Davis purportedly nixed for its lesbian undertones), CAGED is an absolutely dire film noir set behind bars, full of stunning performances and wonderful, meaty dialogue, with philosophy (and tragedy) to spare.

Although we've made much social and political headway since its 1950 release (the recent election notwithstanding), the women-in-prison genre seems to have gone in the opposite direction.

Most examples of this type have been pure exploitation, bordering on pornography, and finding sincere efforts in the genre is exceedingly uncommon. The hit Netflix-produced comedy/drama, ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, represents a notable recent exception, but throughout the years the women-in-prison genre has been a staple mined almost exclusively by smut merchants and purveyors of the grindhouse ethos (and I'm not knocking those films—seen too many to do that).

With CAGED, Warner Brothers had loftier goals, even if they were, perhaps, economically emboldened by the lurid material seemingly inherent in this type of story. While there had previously been more than a few representations of female prisons in the movies, never before had an entire movie been set inside one.  Completely occupied by women, from the warden all the way down, CAGED offered its audience a rare chance to see women in virtually every kind of role, from sad, lost souls, to shrewd repeat cons, to the jaded, corrupt officials oiling the machinery. 

From the start, CAGED wastes no time making its objectives known: we're here to serve time with the rest of them. Hard time. As the opening credits finish rolling, a paddy wagon grinds to a halt, the dark interior gradually revealing anxious female silhouettes in two rows. 

“Pile out, you tramps. It's the end of the line.” 

As they reluctantly file out, perhaps mulling over the callous, casual finality of those words, the viewer is immediately immersed in their plight.

In the starring role, Eleanor Parker plays Marie Allen, a very young and distraught new inmate whose first day in prison begins the story. Only 19, Marie was snagged as an accomplice in a gas station robbery staged by her husband, who was killed in its commission. Stepping out of the police bus, she nervously appraises the massive, forbidding structure before her, then turns back for one last look at the world she'll leave behind.

"Grab your last look at free side, kid."

Once inside, Marie is processed and then quarantined for two weeks (to await the results of her blood work), but not before learning that she's more than likely pregnant.

"I hope this batch is cleaner than the last lot.  Had to scrub them with brooms."

"I don't know."

"Another pregnant one.  Get up.  You know who the father is?"

"My husband."

"Well, ain't we getting respectable...can he help with the expenses?"

"He's dead."

"Another bill for the state.  Get dressed."

While in quarantine, Marie is locked in with a very sick inmate who warns her not to tread too closely. Writers Kellogg and Schoenfeld spared no expense with details such as these, and it doesn't take long to realize that they've done their homework on the subject of day-to-day life in the big house.

Also stuck in quarantine is fellow inmate, Emma Barber (Ellen Corby of "The Waltons"), who provides a bit of amusement as they bide their time.

"I was just thinking..."

"Quit bragging."

"Do they arrest me?  No!"

"Well, it's that judge.  If he had nabbed me the first three times while I was practicing, I wouldn't be here now for murder."

And this theme, however humorous here, is one that is repeated all throughout CAGED: If it weren't for the men in their lives, most of these women wouldn't be here.  It's one of the first of many instances where feminism takes center stage, another rarity for 1950.

When their time in quarantine is up, a nurse informs Marie that along with her blood work coming back normal, she's also two months pregnant.  

From quarantine, she's led by a stone-faced convicted murderer to the warden's office for her entrance interview.

The warden, Ruth Benton (Agnes Moorehead of "Bewitched" fame), is a stern but fair woman, and her progressive bent lends to the impression that perhaps Marie's time here won't be as difficult as one might expect.  Of course, the warden is but one woman.

When Marie breaks down about having her baby in prison, Ruth tells her that any blood relative can look after the child until she gets out, then assures her she'll get an easy job in the laundry until after the pregnancy.

From there she's taken to meet her cell block matron, the looming, ineffable Evelyn Harper (Hope Emerson), who after letting Marie know she controls the influx (and sales) of all contraband, quickly determines the new inmate has no way of getting money from any outside source. From that moment on, Marie is just a pretty face with nothing to offer, and as such becomes an easy mark for the sadistic matron.

Escorted by Evelyn to her new cell block, Marie is then ordered to scrub the floor on hands and knees (despite the warden's order she be given light work).

"Ms. Benton said I was going to work in the laundry."

As she toils away, some of the block's more notable luminaries make themselves known.

Betty Garde, Jan Sterling and Joan Miller, looking heavy.

Moments later, one of matron Harper's rats is dealt with for treading too closely.  

"Maybe you need bifocals!"

"I'll tell Evelyn!"  "You're kidding me!  Harper's first name is Filth!"

Betty Garde is unforgettable as career criminal, Kitty Stark

And then, as if that nasty slap had never occurred, the entire block becomes transfixed by a closely passing train, a strange and haunting ritual they'll repeat.

There's no shortage of likewise surprising and captivating moments throughout CAGED, and I'll try not to ruin them by dragging this on too long.  

Like any prison, mental illness ripples throughout, but never more memorably than in the case of the sad, sweet, helpless visage of one-time well-to-do daddy's girl, Georgia Harrison (Gertrude Michael).  Yet another hapless victim of bad taste in men, Georgia doesn't quite understand what got her here.

"I'm Georgia Harrison.  I'm not supposed to be here.  I didn't forge those checks.  It was all a mistake."

"My father's waiting for me, and he knows I'm not guilty."

Another theme repeated throughout CAGED, quite bold for its time, is the false notion of prison reform.  Of what little is offered in the way of reform here, corruption and brutality is what resonates. Few who run the gamut of hard time come out rehabilitated. More often than not, prisoners simply adapt to the violence and treachery and hopelessness of life behind bars, among criminals (and their often equally deviant guards).  With little to look forward to in the way of career prospects beyond prison walls, a pervasive cynicism settles in, making a successful transition to normal life less and less likely.

And so poor, frightened, unsullied Marie, seemingly innocent and in over her head, doesn't manage to stay so for very long.  

Eleanor Parker and Hope Emerson earned Oscar nominations for their performances, as did writer Virginia Kellogg.

When the final curtain descends, what we're left with is no beaming brilliance at the tunnel's end, no obligatory lessons learned or rebirth of the spirit, but rather a deep and abiding dread of clanging metal, stale bread, passing trains, and crooked matrons the size of water buffalo.

dig it

“Deliveries in the Rear” (NIGHT GALLERY, originally broadcast 2/9/1972)

For the record, I have always enjoyed stories about 19th century grave robbers.  There is a certain thorny, fertile dynamic at play in this singular moral quandary between lowly, sometimes murderous body snatchers (also known as “resurrection men”) and the unscrupulous doctors who hired them—invariably resolute in their claim to the furtherance of medical science. 

A good many stories of this type (including Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Body Snatcher”) were inspired by the infamous case of Burke and Hare, a pair of Edinburgh, Scotland grave robbers who in 1828 were suspected of 16 murders, the victims of which were sold for dissection (in anatomy lectures) to a physician named Robert Knox.  Which brings us around to this particular segment of Night Gallery, “Deliveries in the Rear”, written by Rod Serling and starring Cornel Wilde and Rosemary Forsyth.

The story opens with the telltale, relaxing clip-clop of horseshoes on cobblestone, a dense early morning fog obscuring all but a passing carriage.  As it pulls to a stop near the rear-entrance of a medical school, two men climb off, acting with a degree of trepidation as they begin to unload their cargo.  It’s immediately apparent by their behavior—and by that of the man who receives them at the door—that what they are delivering is a cause of great concern.  

"Tell Dr. Fletcher we’ve brought…"  

"Never mind what you’ve brought!  Bring them in."

At the moment, the aforementioned Dr. Fletcher (the perfectly cast Cornel Wilde) is busy with a lecture, teaching a group of young men the tenets of surgery.  Aiding this class is a subject of dissection, a cadaver that has seen better days and causes a bit of queasiness with one student, who refers to it, breath bated, as “unappetizing”.  

“My dear would-be Dr. Tuttle…this poor, dead, nameless wretch is not on the restaurant menu.”  

This elicits laughter from the class, except Tuttle (a young Gerald McRaney), who promptly faints dead away.  

And it’s the first example of a certain determined indifference on Fletcher’s part towards his subjects of dissection, and more importantly, to "the sanctity of life itself", to quote Rod Serling, who has plenty to say on the matter (through the mouths of his characters). In his efforts to develop young physicians of a certain steely resolve, he regards his cadavers as objects and little more. The means of acquiring these cadavers, by extension, holds for Fletcher even less importance.

When the class lets out, the good doctor is led by his assistant, Jamie (Walter Burke), to meet his suppliers, a grimy, ghoulish pair of bottom scrubbers (Peter Whitney and John Maddison) who've lugged with them a pair of neatly-wrapped corpses. After admonishing them for the first one he examines, a rotter that has been dead for weeks, Fletcher is assured the other cadaver will exceed his expectations.

"Oh, but, doctor—you'll be pleased with this one.  Oh, this one's an absolute Jim Dandy." 

"More like it...not even rigor mortis here—this man has been dead less than two hours."  

"You said you preferred 'em fresh, doctor."

And in this moment, the true span of Dr. Fletcher's moral compass is revealed.  The highly esteemed professor and physician, known to most as a noble healer and saver of lives, has become complicit in murder.

After his rather unsettling guests have departed, Fletcher and his assistant have a closer look at the new cadaver.  "Oh, dear god!" 

"Dead about 2 hours." 

"The man's been bludgeoned...."  

"Mmm-hmm...skull fracture and instantaneous death, from the look of it. You know, Jamie, it's a moot question as to whether or not our suppliers merely disturb death or actually cause it, hmm? However, if I'm to teach young men the art of surgery, I cannot allow myself the luxury of moral outrage."  

Absolving himself any personal responsibility, Dr. Fletcher heads off to dinner with his fiance, telling his troubled assistant as he leaves, "Come now, Jamie.  No one else mourned him.  Why should you?"

At the family home of his young fiance, Barbara, Dr. Fletcher listens as his lovely bride-to-be plays the organ.  It's clear he isn't completely without humanity, as his love for the young woman is quite apparent.  

As the song ends, Barbara's father asks for a word with Fletcher in private.  It seems Dr. Fletcher's future father-in-law (Kent Smith) has been made aware of the dubious nature in which the physician acquires his cadavers.  A senior administrator at the medical school, Dr. Shockman (Peter Brocco), is friendly with the father and has made his growing disapproval of Fletcher's methods known.  And what begins cordially enough quickly escalates into a bitter standoff.

"About these cadavers..."  

"What about them?"  

"Dr. Shockman went as far as to suggest that...they were the victims of foul play." 

"I have no doubt."  

"You mean you'd accept(?!)..." 

"What Dr. Shockman did not say is that if they are indeed the victims of a knifing, a bludgeoning, a garrote, the victim, in each case, is himself a piece of scum.  A drunk, a derelict, a felon, a nameless wandering nonentity whose death goes quite unnoticed."

"John, you can't!" 

Fletcher follows with further justifications, that in death these individuals (having never amounted to much), finally have a purpose, and that no one life is worth its weight against progress made in the name of medical research.  

"I submit to you, John—that may be professionally expedient, but it is neither right, nor just, nor moral!"

Catching her two favorite men in the midst of the rather acrimonious exchange, Barbara interjects cautiously.  

"It appears that I've absented myself too long." 

 "Well, your father and I had a minor disagreement, but it's finished."

"I don't consider it a minor disagreement, and it's hardly finished. We'll talk about this again, John."

That evening as he arrives home, Fletcher is confronted by an irate, drunken elderly peasant woman (Marjorie Bennett) who claims her husband Charlie has been murdered and sold to the doctor for dissection.  

"You've got me Charlie!  You've got him in that hellhole of yours. You've got him lying on a slab, and every day you cut into him! Every day!"

"Now, you listen to me, mother.  I don't have your Charlie.  I don't even know who Charlie is.  But if you don't get off my front steps, I'll have a policeman here in a minute and then you'll see."

"Don't give me that about a policeman!  Don't give me that!  That's what I should've brought here first.  You're no better than the ghouls you hire!  You're just a ghoul yourself!  That's what you are.  You're just a ghoul!"

The next morning at the school, Fletcher is confronted by the aforementioned Dr. Shockman, who has now also met with the distraught old woman.  It appears the police will be paying the school a visit today, and if they find ol' Charlie's remains on the premises, Fletcher can forget about the wedding, his career...everything.

Assuring Dr. Shockman that this woman's missing husband isn't in the building, Dr. Fletcher peppers his indignation with yet another falsehood.  

"Dr. Shockman, we have no male subject here at all.  As a matter of fact, we have the body of a woman, which should lay at rest any interest the police might have in the matter."

"I hope for your sake, that is the case...for the time being, I would discontinue the dissection of humans.  Use animals."

"Animals?  Dr. Shockman, we are trying to graduate a class of surgeons here, not taxidermists!"

"Better taxidermists than sanctimonious collaborators in murder!"

And following Shockman's exit...

And so in a dash to produce a female corpse, Fletcher's ghouls set out on the town.

And passing through the frame at a brisk pace, a somewhat familiar face...