Caught (1949)

Film: Caught (1949)

Stars: James Mason, Barbara bel Geddes, Robert Ryan

Director: Max Ophuls

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Throughout the month of June we will be doing a Film Noir Movie Marathon, featuring fifteen film noir classics that I'll be seeing for the first time.  Reviews of other film noir classics are at the bottom of this article.

Max Ophuls is one of those really great directors who sometimes gets lost in conversations about great directors because his filmography is so eclectic.  Working in German films in the early 1930's, the Jewish director ended up fleeing Germany at just the right time (and there after, fleeing France at the right time), where he briefly worked in Hollywood.  During this time he made one of the great masterpieces of the post-war era (Letter from an Unknown Woman) and several film noir pictures before returning back to Europe in 1950 when the war was over, then making some truly classic pictures like Le Ronde and The Earrings of Madame de....  In a season we're completing filmographies, this is the last of Ophuls' studio film noirs, and yet another noir featuring Robert Ryan, a longtime actor in the genre...but it's also a famous clapback of a different, more notorious movie that Ophuls made, as you'll soon find out.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about a pretty young woman named Leonora Eames (Bel Geddes), who has put her way through charm school in an attempt to marry a wealthy man and live a life outside of the poverty she's spent her whole existence pushing through.  The problem for Leonora, though, is she finds that man: Smith Ohlrig (Ryan), a spoiled & cruel heir to a large fortune, who has turned that fortune into an even vaster & more impressive one through directing movies.  Smith is a celebrity of sorts, but on a whim decides to marry Leonora, who regrets it pretty much instantly.  Leonora thinks she's in love with Smith, but he is so distant and abusive he doesn't think she can love anything but his money.  She ends up leaving him (but not divorcing him), running to work for a pediatrician Dr. Quinada (Mason), with whom she starts to develop actual romantic feelings.  After a brief reconciliation with Smith, where she ends up becoming pregnant, she is blackmailed into staying with Smith, as he says he'll take their baby if she leaves him.  When Smith has an attack of angina, Leonora refuses to help him, and leaves him to presumably die.  He doesn't, but the months of torturing her and the stress of his abuse causes Leonora to give birth prematurely, and the baby dies in the process.  At this point, Leonora can finally leave Smith and marry Dr. Quinada.

The film is fine, let's get that out of the way right now.  I think Bel Geddes' performance grows on you.  I initially wasn't impressed with it, but sitting with it for a day, I realize that what she was doing was kind of shrewd, giving us a woman who honestly doesn't know what she wants, and keeps doing what people tell her she wants, which is an ingenious approach for a female lead in this era.  But the rest of the cast and the script don't work.  Despite being billed as such, this isn't really a film noir-it's a melodrama, and the thing with melodramas is that the heroes are usually quite dull, which is the case with James Mason's do-gooder doctor.  Robert Ryan should be able to save the film, but he seems held back a bit, and isn't in it enough for my taste.

Part of this might be that he's clearly playing Howard Hughes in this movie.  When Ophuls came to Hollywood, he was first hired to make a film for Hughes called Vendetta, which starred his then obsession Faith Domergue.  But that production was troubled, and Ophuls was eventually fired from the film (in total Vendetta would have six directors before it was done even though only one was actually credited on the picture).  This was his retaliation, making a movie where Hughes was basically the villain.  Hughes, to his credit, didn't try to shut down the picture, though he did watch dailies of it and make some suggestions (specifically that Ryan shouldn't wear tennis shoes because "then everyone will know it's me").

1940's: Act of Violence, The Big Sleep, The Blue Dahlia, Blues in the Night, Born to Kill, Brighton Rock, Brute Force, Call Northside 777, Criss Cross, Crossfire, Cry Wolf, Daisy Kenyon, Dead Reckoning, Detour, Fallen Angel, The Fallen Idol, Force of Evil, Gilda, High Sierra, I Walk Alone, I Wake Up Screaming, The Killers, The Lady from Shanghai, Leave Her to Heaven, Ministry of Fear, Moonrise, Murder My Sweet, The Naked City, Nightmare Alley, Out of the Past, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Raw Deal, The Reckless Moment, Ride the Pink Horse, Scarlet Street, Secret Beyond the Door, Sorry, Wrong Number, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Stranger on the Third Floor, They Drive By Night, They Won't Believe Me, Too Late for Tears, The Woman in the Window, The Woman on the Beach, A Woman's Secret

1950's: Ace in the Hole, Affair in Trinidad, The Asphalt Jungle, Beat the Devil, The Big Combo, The Big Heat, The Blue Gardenia, The Breaking Point, The Burglar, Cast a Dark Shadow, The Crimson Kimono, Elevator to the Gallows, Gun Crazy, The Hitch-Hiker, House of Bamboo, In a Lonely Place, Julie, The Killing, Kiss Me Deadly, Lightning Strikes Twice, Murder by Contract, Night and the City, Odds Against Tomorrow, On Dangerous Ground, Pickup on South Street, The Prowler, Slightly Scarlet, Sudden Fear, Sweet Smell of Success, They Live By Night, While the City Sleeps

Neo-Noir: Blade Runner, Body Heat, Farewell My Lovely, Fargo, From Afar, The Late Show, The Long Goodbye, Lost Highway, Night Moves, Nightcrawler, Le Samourai