Caught.

 This is the story of a young woman and two young men who dream! Leonora Eames wants to find a rich and good-looking young man that will sweep her off her feet and marry her. She thinks if she becomes a successful model it will give her a better chance of meeting the right one. But at times living the real life version of our dreams does not always lead to happiness and fulfilment.

 

Smith Ohlrig turns on the charm....

 The men in her life could not be any different. Smith Ohlrig is a complicated man whose afraid of being controlled and to this end accumulates millions of dollars which allows him the luxury of dominating others and presiding over Leonora, whom he marries, but even this does not stop him having psychosomatic heart problems when he can't get his own way! Ohlrig is allegedly modelled on the Tycoon Howard Hughes and with a name that could be mistaken for oilrig I think you can grasp the cut of the character. Our heroine is not after Ohlrig’s money although he thinks she is, this naive young woman actually loves him, well at first at least, until she finds out what the man is really like! Off course conflict ensues with Leonora virtually held prisoner in a home that reverberates the coldness a medieval castle. But strangely Ohlrig loses control over a woman he so much wants to dominate. Feeling threatened he drives her away pushing her into the employment of a Doctor Larry Quinada as receptionist in his East Side surgery. Will she return to Ohlrig, will she fall in love with the captivating doctor, where are her life and emotions heading and will she manage to regain control over her own feelings? And will Leonora finally discover what's really important in her life?

 

....or will she fall for the Doctor?

Superbly directed by Max Ophuls's, who amongst many other films was responsible for classics like Madame de... (1953) and Lola Montes (1955), it has a screenplay based on Libbie Blocks novel Wild Calendar. Caught (1948) is about control and domination with the camera work and Ophuls brilliant direction giving unequal size to the characterisations cleverly placing the actors in dominating positions on the screen for the furtherance of the movies narrative. Although described as a melodramatic soap opera this black and white movie has some truly scene steeling performances from Robert Ryan as Ohlrig and British actor James Mason in his Hollywood debut as Dr Larry Quinada with Barbara Bel Geddes, who is best known for her role in TV’s Dallas as matriarch Miss Ellie Ewing from 1978 until 1990, as Leonora Eames, a role originally meant for Ginger Rogers. The movie has one main problem its overbearing soundtrack that tends at times to dominate the proceedings, other than that well worth a look, as are most of the directors other movies.  

Nice publicity shot for the film. 

The Pumpkin Eater.

Harold Pinter was responsible for some quite literal British screenplays in the sixties including The Caretaker (1963), Accident (1967), The Quiller Memorandum (1966), The Servant (1963) and of course The Pumpkin Eater (1964) for which he won a British Academy Film Award.  Pinter had adapted it from a 1962 novel by Penelope Mortimer. Although the novel had been written in the first person, from the prospective of the leading female character, Pinter changed it to be more about the relationship between a man and wife.

 

Mr and Mrs Armitage share a word or two.

It was Jack Clayton's third feature film and was described as an intellectual soap opera but there's much more to this study of a middle class marriage between the fertile Jo (Anne Bancroft) and her husband Jake Armitage (Peter Finch).  Jo was the casualty of two marriages and has a brood of children before she marries Jake, a successful screenwriter. She has all the trappings of a ‘happy life’ including a beautiful home and an affluent lifestyle and with her children tidied away in nurseries and boarding school plenty of free time to socialise with other’s of the moneyed generation (I mean how many people can afford to have a breakdown in Harrods, a luxurious Kensington department store?) But her life is turned upside down when she discovers that her successful husband is having affairs with other women and to make it worse he treats this as normal behaviour for a man in media! This drives Jo into the care of a psychiatrist.

 

Who loves you baby?

It's similarity with European art movies of the time was made all the more apparent by Anne Bancroft's European looks, even though she was American, also by the French New Wave type soundtrack by George Delerue although Clayton handling of the subject matter can know be seen as typically British. The acting is first rate; Anne Bancroft won the award for Best Actress at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival and the BAFTA for Best Foreign Actress as well as being nominated for Best Actress at the 37th Academy Awards. Peter Finch suits the role of the philandering scriptwriter like a glove with James Mason ideal as the slimy deceived husband who’s wife is having an affair with you know who. My only problem with this intense drama is that it is perhaps a little to long, other than that it’s highly recommended for connoisseur’s of intelligent British movie making in the sixties.