Caught [Blu-ray]

Director: Max Ophüls, Max Ophuls Max Ophüls

Overview

It doesn't take a nuclear scientist to figure out that Smith Ohrig, the character played by Robert Ryan in Caught, is a thinly disguised takeoff of Howard Hughes. But whereas Howard Hughes was merely paranoid and eccentric, Smith Ohrig is an all-out psycho. Impulsively marrying ambitious model Leonora Eames (Barbara Bel Geddes), Ohrig keeps the poor girl a virtual prisoner in his palatial mansion, tormenting her with twisted mind games while he continues his premarital playboy activities. Coming to the realization that wealth and creature comforts are no substitute for stability, Leonora takes a "normal" job in the offices of society doctor Larry Quinada (James Mason). Falling in love with her boss, Leonora nonetheless returns to Ohrig when he turns on his patented charm. Only an act of God (accelerated by Ohrig's hedonistic lifestyle) rescues Leonora from a life of lavish bondage. Billed as Max Opuls on the credits of Caught, director Max Ophuls manages to implant his own distinctive style upon what is essentially a slick Hollywood studio product.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/08/2014
UPC:	0887090079006
Original Release:	1949
Rating:	NR
Source:	Olive
Language:	English
Time:	1:28:00
Sales rank:	14,417

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Barbara Bel Geddes	Leonora Eames
Robert Ryan	Smith Ohlrig
James Mason	Larry Quinada
Ruth Brady	Maxine
Curt Bois	Franzi
Frank Ferguson	Dr. Hoffman
Natalie Schafer	Dorothy Dale
Art Smith	Psychiatrist
Sonia Darrin	Miss Chambers
Bernadene Hayes	Mrs. Rudecki
Ann Morrison	Miss Murray
Wilton Graff	Gentry
Jimmy Hawkins	Kevin
Vicki Raw Stiener	Lorraine
Friedrich Hollaender	Composer

Technical Credits

Arthur Laurents

Max Ophüls	Director
Wolfgang Reinhardt	Producer
Arthur Laurents	Screenwriter
Jack Baur	Casting
Max Ophuls	Director

Editorial Reviews

Max Ophuls' sudser about a woman who's terrorized by her wealthy husband is probably about as good a film as could be made from this '40s women's magazine-level script. Despite some interesting, subliminal suggestions about the American obsession with wealth and the way it shaped the way a certain stratum of women thought about themselves in the pre-feminist era, like many soap operas, it's basically an updated gothic romance about a woman who made a Bad Decision. Whether or not Robert Ryan's malevolent mogul was, as rumored, based on the character of Howard Hughes, his atrocious behavior toward his wife (Barbara Bel Geddes) certainly is consistent with the eccentric recluse's notoriously cruel treatment of women. Once again, he's excellent here, more clearly a victim of inner demons than in many of his villainous roles, his relationship with his wife more clearly defined by the vast tracts of space Ophuls' expressive compositions put between them than by their overwrought dialogue. Bel Geddes seems a bit too healthily stolid to be playing the victim here, and James Mason's world-weary sophistication is a bad match with the admittedly lame part of the benign ghetto doctor. Given the constraints of Hollywood, it's not surprising that Ophuls would soon return to Europe to make the best films of his career.

All Movie Guide - Michael Costello