Details

Release year: 1950

Storyline

A gentle, naive, pregnant 19-year-old widow is slowly, inexorably ground down by the hardened criminals, sadistic guards, and matron at a woman's prison. Will she be the same person when her sentence is up?

Top credits

Directors

John Cromwell

Writers

Cast

Eleanor Parker — Marie Allen
Agnes Moorehead — Ruth Benton
Ellen Corby — Emma Barber
Hope Emerson — Evelyn Harper

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Awards

0 wins & 3 nominations

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Did you know

• Eleanor Parker allowed her head to be shaved for the sake of reality when the two prison matrons, played brilliantly by Hope Emerson and Frances Morris, restrain her and shave her head.

• After I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) led to prison reform in six states, Warners producer Jerry Wald wanted to do the same for women's prisons and sent former newspaper reporter Virginia Kellogg out. She had written a novel that became a Kay Francis film, Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933), about a doctor who bears a child out of wedlock. She had also written well-researched original stories that were the basis for T-Men (1947), about treasury agents, and White Heat (1949), starring James Cagney as a psychotic gangster. She spent months doing research for Caged (1950) at prisons around the country, and was even briefly incarcerated in one of them. Her research is evident in the script with authentic prison slang of the era, and details of prison life, such as the caste system, and the tedium of daily life. Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld received an Oscar® nomination for Caged (1950)'s story and screenplay.

• Eleanor Parker (Marie Allen) recalled that Hope Emerson (Evelyn Harper) was "just the opposite of the woman she played in Caged (1950). She was a sweet, gentle lady who played the piano for us between scenes and was very worried about her sick mother." Because of her size, Emerson was often typecast as a villain, but her size also was used for comic effect, as when she played a circus strong woman in Adam's Rib (1949).