Best movie of this year hands down!

Powerful

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Lady in a Cage is directed by Walter Grauman and written by Luther Davis. It stars Olivia de Havilland, Jeff Corey, James Caan, Ann Sothern, Jennifer Billingsley and Rafael Campos. Music is by Paul Glass and cinematography by Lee Garmes.If you trawl for reviews of this film you will find pretty much all the cinematic words used to describe a non big budgeted mainstream film that many love. Re: Cult, Camp, Schlock and etc, what ultimately transpires with Lady in a Cage is a film that everybody should understand why some love and some hate it. One film lovers camp schlocky classic is another one's irritatingly over acted bore. I'm close to being in the latter camp.It start off so well, the Paramount logo in cage stripes, a jarring score, a dead dog in the road and superb opening credits that segue into in your face fast cuts. Then story pitches wealthy Cornelia Hilyard as being trapped in a elevator cage in her home (she's recovering from a broken hip see), being all alone she's forced to use the alarm system, which brings into play unsavoury and unstable characters to blight and torment home and woman both.The big message beating at the pic's black heart is so heavily handled by the makers it ends up boorish, rendering shock factor as zero. Come the mid-point the overacting on show by all - including the once magnificent de Havilland - is almost unwatchable. In fact much of it ends up being laughable, so as one is meant to feel repulsion at the stink infecting the human race, one is instead pondering the implausibilities of it all. There's a scene where Cornelia should simply push her chief tormentor out of the cage, but no!, the over cooked screenplay wants to cram in a load more daft human foibles before reaching its finale.We even have a case where two characters in the play, one a key player in proceedings, don't have their fates revealed. Not in a crafty cliffhanger way, but in a lazy forgetful piece of hackdom. You have to say its effective because it draws you in with its unpleasantness - both as an observation on the human condition and as poor film making - so much so you have to stay with it to the end. Perhaps that is job done, then? But really it's one that this viewer personally could not recommend at all. 5/10

As so many of her contemporary movie queens of the past decade Olivia DeHavilland went into horror films It's a sad commentary on the lack of roles she was getting at that point. By the next decade she was not doing this sort of film any more.In Lady In A Cage she plays a housebound woman who is recovering from a broken hip and had a special elevator installed for her use. She's rich and does poetry on the side and she's kept her son William Swan tied to her apron strings. When he leaves for the 4th of July weekend an accident happens and the power goes out while she's stuck in mid air in that elevator.When it rains it pours. A wino played by Jeff Corey breaks in and starts stealing a lot of expensive things. He brings in a partner a very frowzy Ann Sothern who's seen her share of men and booze. While trying to fence some of what they've stolen they attract a trio of Charles Manson wannabes played by James Caan, Jennifer Billingsley, and Rafael Campos.So while all of them party and menace DeHavilland they also aren't happy with each other, the different generation of thieves.I have to say Caan made an impressive screen debut, he was one frightening dude. Campos who usually played nice kids is also one nasty strung out individual. Billingsley was beautiful, but she'll be Sothern in 10 years and also strung out.Olivia's other venture into the horror genre was Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte and Lady In A Cage is not as good as that one. But it does have its moments.One thing that was overlooked. Being trapped as she was there certainly was no opportunity to use any facilities. Those 48 hours or so in the cage might have made it and Olivia really smell.Other than not accounting for that Lady In A Cage was an OK horror film

One of the hallmarks of a superior screenplay is the way it deals with 'awkward' questions whilst one of the hallmarks of a good movie is that 'awkward' questions don't begin to raise their quizzical heads until long after you reach home. So: Having established in the first minute of screen time that Olivia de Havilland is perfectly able to walk, albeit slowly, with the aid of a walking stick and further established inside another minute - via an exchange of dialogue with her son, about to leave her alone in the house for several days - that she will be able to dispense with the walking stick in just a few weeks, why, we wonder, has she seen fit to install an elevator that would not be out of place in a four-star hotel, in a modest-sized house in which the only stairs on view are straight and number no more than twenty treads at the outside. Why not install a stairlift? Okay, let that one go for a moment; after eleven minutes screen time the power fails leaving her suspended some six or seven feet above the ground. Eventually she presses the alarm button which rings, not, as we might suppose, in the local police station/doctor's surgery etc but in an alley at the side of the house which depends on 1) someone passing by at the exact time the alarm sounds and 2) no noise from traffic on the large highway that runs in front of the house. Okay, let THAT one go, too. When a passing wino (Jeff Corey) stumbles into the kitchen deHavilland, who can't see who it is, launches into what SHE thinks is logical exposition: A few months ago she broke her hip and had the elevator installed until it mended. This is where it falls down. To design, build and install such an elevator would take about three times as long as it would for the hip to heal so immediately the whole premise is out the window. When you're thinking this whilst WATCHING the film you know they're in trouble. Having said that it's certainly watchable; deHavilland, clearly anxious to put Melanie Wilks behind her, reveals a backbone (if not a hipbone) and Corey and Ann Sothern turn in fine support. Worth a look.

"Lady in a Cage" was banned in Australia for a long time, and has only just been released on DVD. I had read much about it, and now having seen it, have to say a lot of the criticism was justified mainly because of the terrible script writing - some of the things Olivia de Havilland had to say were so juvenile and out of context that I felt they destroyed one's interest. It is a film for viewing only once as the violence was so strong for the 60's, but way below what we are being served up today. If you could eliminate some of the script, and certainly fix the continuity as well as repair the poor ending, there is the basis of a good story. de Havillands acting was excellent, while James Caan made a very frightening villain, but for me, the performance of Ann Sothern as Sade, the Hustler, was the highlight. At the conclusion of seeing this Film, I felt dissatisfied in the fact that with some proper scripting and direction, it could have been very good.