This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Best movie ever!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Spoilers. Observations. Opinions. Eleanor Parker is a young, pretty inmate. She is also naive. How does she survive? Parker was later in The Sound of Music, as fiancé of the captain. In Music, she is older, jaded and not exciting. This time, she isn't the ingenue. That position is taken by Julie Andrews. Andrews also got the captain. The matron is old, huge and aggressive. She is mean and vindictive, and she rules with an iron boxing glove. She seems jealous of the inmates. The swaggering blonde woman is creepy. She appears very mannish, and is rolling in cash. She wants to buy people, especially Eleanor Parker. There are strong homosexual innuendoes in this character. Eleanor Parker all of a sudden becomes jaded, hardened and is no longer the young innocent.A woman gets thrown into the hole by the matron. This woman gets beaten to a pulp (is this off-camera?) while in that dungeon. She ran all the rackets before the swaggering dame showed up. The woman gets out of the hole, and is speechless and dumbfounded. She has extreme rage. She is boiling over. All of a sudden in the mess hall, she uses a dinner fork to stab the ugly old matron. There is a prison riot. All the beds get turned over, and everything else in the dormitory gets thrown into the melee. The woman are irate. Meanwhile, Eleanor Parker has found a kitten outdoors. She tries to hide it in the dormitory, but during the riot it gets its life ended. This is terrible. It was a very cuddly, darling little kitty. This film was smashing, interesting and quite sad. These women were thrown from the outside world into a very harsh environment.

Kudos to TCM's 2015 "Summer of Darkness" for showing this seldom-viewed "film noir." For my money, it's the best "women in prison" film that's ever been made, far superior to the sexploitation films in this genre in recent decades. The beginning shot is a classic noir shot inside the paddy wagon taking the women, including the protagonist Marie Allen played by Eleanor Parker in an Oscar-nominated role, to the prison. We're looking out at the small wired screen at the back of the wagon and we get a sense of confinement, of being "caged", and then we hear the gruff command (see summary above) that starts the women's entry into the prison system. The film conveys a dark and gritty "social realism" that Warner Brothers seemed to specialize in at this time.While the prison is run by a progressive warden played by Agnes Morehead, the prisoners are cruelly harassed by a truly monstrous matron played by Hope Emerson, who also received an Oscar nomination. In this women's prison there are naive young women, CPs (common prostitutes), and hardened criminals who endeavor to instruct the younger ones in the ways of crime. There are hints of lesbianism, a staple for a prison film, but quite muted as expected for 1950. The truly marvelous thing to watch is Eleanor Parker's slow evolution from 19-year-old innocent to hardened aspiring criminal when she's released. The social message in "Caged" is that the prison system of 1950 was better at promoting recidivism than rehabilitation.

Kudos to director John Cromwell for producing such a well-crafted, women's, prison picture that (Surprise! Surprise!) rises far above the usual pitfalls of being nothing more than pure exploitation trash.As well - Kudos goes to both Eleanor Parker and Hope Emerson for their earnest conviction and sincere believability in the first-rate character portrayals that they delivered in "Caged".This gritty, unsentimental, unglamourous, tough-as-nails Chick Flick from 1950 is, without question, the best prison film (focusing on women) that I have ever seen, bar none.Yes. Caged is clichéd as only a prison picture could possibly be, but, with that aside, its cast, its director, and its screenwriter (Virginia Kellogg) were obviously so professional and self-assured about their involvement in the story that they were tackling that Caged literally stands tall as a shining gem of its genre.From its despairing opening sequence, to its even more despairing final moments, Caged certainly succeeded in holding my unwavering interest and attention for its full 96-minute running time.Yes. Indeed. I recommend this picture very highly.P.S. - Think you're tough?.... Just wait till you see what happens in the scene involving Fluffy, the adorable kitten!

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