Last night, I watched Imprint's Australian import of LADY IN A CAGE with the Barry Forshaw/Kim Newman commentary, a vigorous listen that pays out in a refined appreciation of this still daunting, somewhat marginalized suspense thriller. As Britons, they have a somewhat different view of the film than we do in America, because the BBFC banned the film in England in 1964 and did not reverse their decision until 1967; I'm still not clear on why they reconsidered the ban, but their original concern about the film was that its violence might be imitable and unfavorably influence members of the audience. Between them, Barry and Kim make a sound case that Walter Grauman's film (based on a script by producer Luther Davis) was likely as much an influence on Wes Craven's THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972) as THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960, evident in the similar nature and names of their Sade/Sadie characters, and the physical profile of the home invaders) and point out that it remarkably manages to deliver about the same degree of graphic violence as the Craven film would. It's also a strongly-worded film at times, and may be the earliest film (at least the earliest studio film) to unambiguously use the word "gay" as code for "homosexual." (I know we all want Cary Grant's BRINGING UP BABY exclamation "I just went gay all of a sudden!" to mean what it means today, but non-gay uses of "gay" proliferated in films for years to come, so there will always be some ambiguity attached.) In summation, Kim and Barry concur that LADY IN A CAGE is probably the only horror film of its era that is just as shocking today as it would have been in 1964, and I can't argue with that. If you're one of those people who saw the film once and doesn't remember much about it, you probably saw it on commercial television where it was always cut; this is not the sort of film one forgets.
Olivia de Havilland, who replaced Joan Crawford in the lead role (she decided to do William Castle's STRAIT-JACKET instead) cautioned audiences from the poster "Do Not See It Alone!", is said to have disliked the final product, which she considered an egregious example of trends in filmmaking of which she did not approve, but as Kim says, "I don't think Olivia de Havilland ever walked through anything." She is flat-out great in this, giving a remarkably physical and emotional performance for an actress who is literally trapped in a box and unable to share scenes with her co-stars for much of the running time.
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| Home invaders James Caan, Jennifer Billingsley, Rafael Campos and Ann Sothern. |
I agree with the commentators there is actually little to criticize in any of the performances; while one or two things about its essentially toxic world view might seem too "on the nose," is it really possible to be too "on the nose" if you're telling someone their house is on fire, or - it only follows - that their world is at an existential precipice?
Color would have destroyed this film, which was wisely shot in black-and-white, giving it a pseudo-documentary, true crime feel, and there is also some startlingly gory stuff in it; given the monochrome palette, even the scene in which Jennifer Billingsley marks up Rafael Campos with a lipstick looks like she's taking a straight razor to his bare skin. But what most resonates about the film is ultimately its blunt conclusion that "WE are the monsters." When Cornelia, the de Havilland character, finally realizes (as her home invaders have pointed out) that she is as monstrous in her own way as anyone else in the film. I was very pleased to see the film holding up so well to such sustained critical scrutiny, and there's still a Kat Ellinger commentary and a video essay by Chris O'Neill yet to go. It also has a slipcase with unique artwork limited to the first 2000 copies, so collectors be alert.
The Imprint release came out last December, around the same time as a stateside release from Shout! Factory, which replaces the Imprint supplements with a new commentary by David Del Valle and David DeCoteau, whose thoughts on the subject should also be of keen interest. It also has a featurette of Kim Newman solo, presumably enthusing about the movie at length.
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