This film shows the transformation of a naive young girl into a grownup criminal; it stands up to the passage of time well. Still considered by many the best film about women in prison.

Director: John Cromwell
Screenplay: Virginia Kellogg and Bernard C. Schoenfeld
Cast:
    Eleanor Parker as Marie Allen
    Agnes Moorhead as Ruth Benton
    Ellen Corby as Emma Barber
    Hope Emerson as Evelyn Harper
    Betty Garde as Kitty Stark
    Jan Sterling as Smoochie
    Lee Patrick as Elvira Powell
    Olive Deering June

Opening scene: looking forward from the rear of a prison wagon, sirens sounding, speeding down the street. The door opens. "Pile out, you tramps. It's the end of the line." (Probably the best opening line in prison film history.)  Looking up at the old stone fortress: "Women's State Prison." A young, scared blonde woman is afraid to get down. A guard pulls her out into a group of about 15 women. "Grab your last look at freeside." Cars going by on the street. An experienced con, Kathy, leads the way to the receiving room. Marie Allen, # 93850, is first. She is nervous and pale. The records matron takes her wedding ring and valuables. She is doing 1-15 years for armed robbery. Tom, her husband, was unemployed; he tried to rob a gas station. She was in the car and came to his aid. She is 19. Directed to the infirmary. Emma Barber is next.

In the infirmary, a rough physical by a female nurse. She feels sick--could be pregnant. She tells the nurse her husband is dead. "Another bill for the state," the nurse says.

For her mug shot, she asks for a comb. The matron tells her, "What's the difference, there's no men in here." She is taken to isolation for two weeks, until her blood test comes back. "Welcome to Lysol Lane," the only other inmates in the large dorm room says. She is sick, dying, and probably infectious. Emma comes in, the next of the new fish.

The women are sitting in their beds in the plain room talking. Emma blames the judge for her imprisonment: they failed to punish her three previous times for shooting at Joe, whom she has now killed.

The matron comes in. Marie is two months pregnant. She looks stricken. She is sent to the superintendent, Mrs. Benton. Ann leads her up front. She has been there eight years for murder. The superintendent is a professional-looking woman who tells her she would like to be her friend. Marie breaks down in tears. The superintendent hugs her and gives her a cigarette. "No prison is a normal place." Up for parole in 10 months. She has to stay inside to have the baby. They want to help her start a new life.

Marie is assigned to the laundry as a checker. Ann brings Marie to Harper, the heavy-set head matron. She tells Marie how tough it can be and shows her a drawer of treats for her girls. She says she could make it easier for her--especially if she has any bad habits. Harper has a dorm of 60 women. She assigns Marie to scrub floors. Three women come up to talk--Kitty, Clare, and Moochie. They slap around one of Harper's snitches. A train goes by: they all stop to watch. A formerly rich woman, Georgia Harrison, comes up. She seems pretty daffy. She is in for checks. Harper comes back, followed by Emma.

They go to chow. They eat in silence, except for the metallic banging. Harper pulls Marie up and accuses her of complaining to Benton. The old woman in the dorm says she did it. Harper threatens her, and the old woman says she'll put her lights out. "One more like you is just so much velvet."

The women line up for count--last name, first name. Shower time, showing legs only. Later they talk about their crimes and how much money they made. Moochie says her man beat her up and left town. "If it wasn't for men, we wouldn't be in here." One woman says she was married to five men--at the same time. They sleep on double bunk beds. Marie is looking for a friend. Lights out. A Woman is singing "Bird in a Cage." Women are coughing. (30:30) Georgia goes crazy, raving madly about getting out of prison. She is taken to the infirmary with a cut artery.

The routine of life in the prison dorm. Days move to the sound of bells ringing. Marie works in the laundry. At six months pregnant, Marie is anemic and has a backache. Kitty approaches Marie about going into boosting--stealing--when she gets out. Kitty is close to some guys who can set Marie up in style. Marie says she's not interested: "When I get out I'm not coming back." You have to have a job to get out on parole. The other two women walk away.

Marie is very pregnant. One of the other women--June--has a parole hearing. She was out once before--blames her bad man for turning her into a two-time loser. She gets "flopped"--denied parole. The women play cards; June is in a daze.

Harper comes in all dressed up. She taunts them with her plans to go out with a man. They tell her June is acting "stir bugs." Marie wakes up in pain in the night. She faints when she sees June has hung herself in the shower. She goes into premature labor. Benton calls in a doctor to deliver the boy.

Benton gets on Harper for not paying attention to June. Harper says Benton can't do anything to her. She says the prison out to be run with "a piece of rubber hose." Solitary, bread and water, clipped hair, like animals in a cage.

Mr. Donnelly comes for a visit. The medical board has complained to the lieutenant governor. He asks what she wants. Benton says things she got for other prisons, "Teachers. A full-time psychiatrist." She says the public ought to see the women decaying.

Marie picks up her baby son. The birth certificate says the town, not the prison. Her mother has come to visit. (51:40) The baby is going to be named Tommy (after her dead husband). Her mother says she can't take the baby; Gus doesn't want the baby. Her mother cries and whines and runs out on her. The baby will have to be adopted out to strangers.

Kitty talks to Marie about getting set up outside. Stay inside too long and you stop thinking about men. Harper is in her cold room drinking from a bottle under the mattress. "Pile out you tramps." It is count time. Marie has a parole hearing. A new "Vice Queen" is coming in--Elvira Powell. She will replace Kitty in Harper's good graces.

The women are waiting for the parole hearing. A woman comes out, saying she made it. Marie goes in. Three men on the board: they smoke and read the files awhile before one speaks. They are very formal and condescending. Her stepfather won't let her back in the house. The board won't let her live alone, saying she is like a child. The warden comes to her defense. Marie is too excited, babbling that she must get out or she'll become like the other women in prison. The board chairman says nine months is not long enough: parole is not granted. Marie looks stricken and starts to scream, then runs through the prison to the yard, trying to get over the barbed wire fence. Her hand is cut when she is pulled down. (1:01:45) Benton says no solitary.

Women on the yard. Elvira Powell already has Harper on her payroll; she's hiding out for six months or so to avoid a grand jury investigation. Elvira speaks to Marie Allen, who rebuffs her.

It's Christmas in the dorm. Kitty is trying to teach one of the girls to boost. The girl is slow. Marie shows that she is much better at it. She knows the lingo, too. Then she realizes what she is doing, and she is horrified. "Line up for Christmas," Harper says. They give out Christmas presents--cosmetics and jewelry from Elvira. Marie gives back her gift, a shiny compact. Benton comes in and sees the gifts. She tells the women they can start wearing lipstick. The women sing and dance to "Bird in a Cage." Marie isn't singing.

Harper drags Kitty into solitary. We hear the sounds of a beating. Marie is on the yard, when she finds a lost kitten in the snow. She brings it into the dorm and stashes it in her locker. After lights out, they give the kitten some milk. The next morning at roll call, Harper hears the cat. When she tries to take it from Marie, Marie fights back, ripping Harper's uniform. The women riot, wrecking the dorm within minutes. Benton comes in and the riot stops at once. Marie finds the cat dead in the wreckage. The warden gives her three days in solitary. Harper restrains her and shaves her head first. Marie, going in, sees Kitty going out--they say she's stir bugs now. Marie is crying, "Let me out,." after a short time in the cell.

Benton sends a telegram to the commissioner demanding Harper's removal for cutting Marie's hair. Harper calls her political contact Thornton Goodrich. The next thing we see, in a newspaper headline, "Matron Charges Prison Immorality." The political officials come to visit. They have directives from the commissioner. Benton refuses them, citing her refusal to accommodate "cheap politicians." When they ask for her resignation, Benton says she'll demand a public hearing. "Fire me. I want that public hearing."

Marie is back from the hospital with short hair. The women bang their locker lids at Harper, who is intimidated. Benton comes to yell at them again, "Stop it." (They respond like children to their mother.)

Kitty is alone on the yard. Elvira talks to her. Later in the dining hall, Harper speaks rudely to Kitty, who stabs her repeatedly with a metal fork. (1:28:00) Marie is chanting, "Kill her. Kill her." (Harper is dead on the floor, though it looks like she would be spurting blood, which she isn't.) Kitty goes immediately to the death house for the murder.

The old woman con, Millie Lewis, tells Marie her story. She's 70, a lifer, been a con 40 years. "You know what I think? Nobody got cheated but me. Forty years taken away." She tells Marie to get a good guy and have a kid. "What I'd give for a sink full of dirty dishes." Rich visitors come by on a tour of the prison. Marie stares at a young woman in mink coat who runs away. Marie seems to have made up her mind all at once. She goes to Elvira Powell to get her heart compact back. She puts on lipstick while the women sing "Rock of Ages."

Marie gets parole. She hurriedly changes her clothes. The clerk gives her a check, at six cents a day for 502 days. Marie throws her wedding ring in the trash can. Marie goes to see Benton, who knows Marie is going to work for Elvira Powell. Marie is hardcore now, ready for the life of a professional criminal. Her last words to Benton: "For that 40 bucks Tom and I heisted, I certainly got myself an education." She walks out smoking a cigarette and gets into a car with three men. One of them puts his hand on her leg and lights her cigarette as they drive away.

The secretary asks Benton what she should do with Marie's file. Benton says, "Keep it active. She'll be back." 

The End. (1:36:45) 

Commentary:
Besides the usual conflict between the guards and the inmates, in Caged we also get the conflict between the progressive warden, Ruth Benton, and the regressive matron, Evelyn Harper. Is the warden a realistic figure?

Why does Marie Allen change? Does she change herself? Or does the system change her?

What are the most notable features about life in the women's prison?

Half a century later, how would you imagine life in a women's prison has changed?

Who are the role models Marie has to choose from? Why doesn't the story told by the old woman con, Millie Lewis, at the end have more effect on Marie's choice about her life after prison?