Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 21-August-11
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Caught (1949)

Watching movies from the 1930s and '40s gives the impression that gold digging was widespread and accepted before women were fully integrated into the workforce. In what amounted to prostitution, a woman driven by greed or perceived necessity would use sex to snag a man who could afford diamonds and mink or, even better, could be cajoled into marriage and the long-term insurance of alimony. Although I prefer older movies to those made today, this recurrent depiction of male-female relations gets me down. Which is why Caught caught my attention.

The heroine of the picture is a middle-class girl (Barbara Bel Geddes) who is eking out a living in Los Angeles when she enrolls in charm school to become more attractive to Mr. Right. She isn't a gold digger exactly, but a dreamer who thinks that romance, happiness, and money must go hand in hand. After studying diction and poise and changing her name to the sophisticated-sounding "Leonora," she is invited to a party on the yacht of famous millionaire Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan). "Invited" is too nice a word; she is requested to attend by one of Ohlrig's lackeys with the expectation that she'll give the male guests something to look at, flirt with, and perhaps take home. She goes to the marina despite trepidation and ends up spending the evening (chastely) with the host himself. At this point the camera cuts away from Leonora to show Ohlrig visiting his psychotherapist, which reveals that he is a domineering bastard who decides to marry Leonora to prove that he fears nothing. (His character was reputedly modeled on Howard Hughes, Hollywood's most notable piece of work.)

The marriage goes south as soon as it's consummated, and the movie jumps forward several months to find Leonora languishing in a Long Island mansion nearly out of her mind with disappointment. After Ohlrig humiliates her in front of a roomful of business associates, she flees to New York City to be on her own. Here's where the story gets interesting. She is hired as a receptionist by a pediatrician named Dr. Quinada (James Mason) who is intrigued by her combination of charm-school mannerisms and underlying sincerity. Sure, Quinada is handsome and a doctor, but he is a modest man dedicated to serving blue collar families and thus inspires a different type of desire and appreciation. The contrast between Leonora's old and new priorities is emphasized by the fact that she enrolls in school again — this time to learn typing and stenography. Of course Quinada wants to marry her before long, but this is because they have fallen in love as partners who seek the same fulfillment from life. Who knew that a woman of the time could find solid work and security without selling body and soul?

Leonora faces several hurdles before she can embrace her happy ending, what with an egomaniacal husband still regarding her as a possession. The last act of Caught is steeped in melodrama, but the cast keeps it from appearing overdone. Mason is particularly fine in a scene where he challenges Leonora to make a choice, not between her husband and himself, but between the shallow life represented by the former and the meaningful life represented by the latter. Women's options may have been few in the past, but Caught offers the comforting idea that they weren't as narrow as other movies suggest.

Copyright © 2011 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.