strong pentitentiary drama with good supporting cast directed by Jules Dassin I recommend it heartily on a night when TCM is finding liberty behind bars, a breakout, a pin-up girl that all the boys can love, or a dream of revenge. Just finished watching "Caged" set in a woman's prison, where Eleanor Parker gets her hair clipped and and goes from being a sweet innocent accessory in a gas station holdup to a tough broad smoking cigarettes between two muscular gents in the back of a sleek sedan, and now Burt Lancaster is getting out of solitary and coming up against Hume Cronyn playing a sadistic prison guard who listens to Wagner while beating up a prisoner. The thematic conflict in both cases is between stern disciplinarians and decent but weak or overmatched wardens who think the inmates should be treated like human beings not animals.
That's an excellent little movie. Much standout acting. Stumbled across it on TCM a few years ago and was riveted. Hume Cronyn is especially notable.
Posted by: Greg | July 29, 2011 at 08:56 AM