| Overview: | "Will she come out woman or wildcat?" trumpeted ads for this women-behind-bars classic. There's no question about how the film itself came out. Using familiar but sharply played characters to bring home its reform-minded message, "Caged" remains a pivotal genre classic.
Best Actress Academy Award nominee Eleanor Parker portrays the inmate whose transformation from sunny innocent to tight-lipped, worldwise con provides its focus. As the tyrannical floor matron, Best Supporting Actress nominee Hope Emerson is 6'2" of Grade-A malevolence. And an earnest prison superintendent, a sour lifer, a street-lamp tramp, a patsy, a society dame, and other types add atmosphere to an Oscar-nominated script co-writer Virginia Kellogg researched while posing on the inside as a convict.
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