Caught

A young woman marries a millionaire but then falls in a love with a poor doctor. Bel Geddes is miscast as the woman in the love triangle. The role calls for someone beautiful and vibrant, but the actress is too plain and dull to be believable as someone who rich and powerful men would be fighting over. Mason is supposed to be American, but makes no attempt to suppress his British accent. Ryan gives the most interesting performance here, as the intimidating and controlling big shot Bel Geddes marries. It has the look of a film noir but it is really nothing more than a soap opera. Ophuls specialized in these types of films, but he can't overcome the mediocre script.

Barbara Bel Geddes is perfect as a starry-eyes young woman who wants to make something of herself. She goes to charm school. Who would ever dream that a young lady in such a cloistered setting would meet and be wooed by a fabulously wealthy eccentric!

"Caught" is cast in a unique manner. Maybe it was the director's lack of familiarity with American performers. More likely, these are the people who were most eager to work under him. Whatever the reason for his choosing Robert Ryan to play the millionaire, it was brilliant casting: Ryan was a superb actor. He was tall and intense. In his most famous noirs, he plays cops or military men. Yet the character he plays here is withdrawn, well-spoken, and even a bit effete. He's in analysis, to boot! It's an exceptionally good performance that today would win an actor all sorts of awards.

James Mason is also cast very much against type: He plays a doctor who treats poor people for little or no pay. (Light years, not just a bit more than a decade, away from his Humbert Humbert!) And Ryan has a manservant who plays piano and calls everyone, male or female, "darling!" He is played to perfection by Curt Bois.

"Letter from an Unknown Woman" is a lovely film and probably Ophuls' most famous American work. It'd dreamy, romantic, heartbreaking. "Caught" is very different -- I would place it squarely as film noir. However, it does not lack for his famous shots of people ascending staircases and doing other graceful things beautifully.

If only for Ryan's performance, "Caught" is a must. And there is far more to it than that one performance.

The film contains noirish elements rather actually being of the genre but it is still a most beautifully photographed b/w movie. Some Ophuls trademark shooting, particularly with regard to the wonderfully shot staircase sequences and the dance club scenes where the camera seems to glide with a life its own. Great performances are central to the film's success because we do get close to melodrama and the horrific portrayal by Robert Ryan as the ruthless, almost psychotic millionaire and the highly effective playing by Barbara Bel Geddes, keep this morality tale from becoming too sentimental. James Mason does well enough as the barely believable doctor with a heart of gold and other bit parts all help hold this raging beast together.

I wonder if Howard Hughes saw this devastating portrait based on himself. Actually, the movie's Smith Ohlrig (Ryan) makes Citizen Kane's portrait of newspaper tycoon Hearst look like a boy scout by comparison. In fact, the great Robert Ryan is downright scary in the part, towering over everyone else and just as mean.

Also indicted are capitalism's commercial values as evidenced in Leonora's (Bel Geddes) unthinking pursuit of a wealthy man and a mink coat, for which she gets a real education. Catch the excellent screenplay's first and last scenes to get the rounded message.

Bel Geddes is perfect as the impressionable girl with good instincts, caught up in a popular culture stressing wealth as life's great panacea. All in all, her journey amounts to a spiritual one, traversing noirish worlds from lavish wealth to extreme poverty, at the same time, uncovering a new set of values more associated with the world's great religions than with symbols of status.

Surprisingly, the movie's dark panorama is rather poetically rendered by director Ophuls' famously fluid camera. There are no sudden jerks or abrupt edits to jolt viewers recognition. Instead, it's Ohlrig's dastardly behavior that leaves no doubt. In fact, I think the movie's message would be stronger were his behavior softened somewhat.

There are a number of memorable scenes, especially where the servile Franzi (Bois) torments Leonora with bad piano playing. Also, catch that beautifully done scene where Hoffman (Ferguson) delicately queries his fellow doctor's (Mason) relationship with Leonora, knowing that she's pregnant. Note too, how often the characters second-guess the motives behind what others say. It's an especially thoughtful screenplay.

Too bad the film is not better known. Perhaps it's because the central character is a woman, unusual for noir. Then too, the 90-minutes sharply question America's great secular religion—commercialism. One thing for sure— the movie's not a Howard Hughes production.

Too often "Caught" is overlooked regards film buffs in general, and noir fans specifically. The director Max Ophuls is at his best, with terrific pacing and subtlety throughout. This is far and away, Barbara Bel Geddes best film, though she has stiff competition from James Mason and Robert Ryan. In typical noir fashion, "Caught" drags the American Dream through the tar, showing the American capitalist (and other diverse values) to be not-so-darned nice. In view of what was already happening, and coming down the line (McCarthyism), "Caught" was a brave movie. Special praise should be given the brilliant German actor, Curt Bois in this movie (as "Franzi"). He's absolutely perfect, as he was in so many roles. The ending is, to me, clearly a studio patchwork, but such is to be expected. Still, this movie is a "no-miss".