Must See Movie...

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The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The Saul Bass-inspired credits for 1964 psychological thriller Lady in a Cage immediately bring to mind the work of Alfred Hitchcock, as does the film's single location and its high-concept: a rich woman trapped in her lift is tormented by opportunist thieves who ransack her home.But director Walter Grauman is no Hitchcock.Grauman lacks the sheer class and style of Hitch, his film being a lurid, trashy little effort boasting a heavy-handed cynical message about how people in Western society have become indifferent to the suffering of their fellow man (or in this case, woman).Walt's handling of his material is completely devoid of subtlety, and his cast follow suit by gleefully overacting at every available opportunity, with star Olivia De Havilland's hysterical, melodramatic central performance being particularly comical (her rapid descent into despair, her sudden outburst of 'Alouette' and the faces she pulls while writing terrible poetry in her head are all priceless!).With a dead dog, a wino stabbing, talk of decapitated women, and assorted sadistic brutality courtesy of young thug Randall Simpson O'Connell (James Caan, channelling Marlon Brando), the intention was clearly to shock the audience, but the final product borders on high camp (something that lends the film a certain cult appeal) and frequently proves tedious, all of which prevents it from being the truly disturbing classic it was clearly intended to be.

Lady in Cage! This is James Caan's first starring role (although not his first picture) and he plays a brutal character that he modeled after Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire.Olivia de Havilland (yes that Olivia de Havilland) is Cornelia Hilyard, a wealthy widow who is recovering from hip surgery. In order to get to the second floor of her house she has an elevator installed. On this particular day Cornelia is taking the lift upstairs when the power goes out and traps her between floors. Fortunately for her she has an emergency button that rings a bell outside the house. Instead of someone coming to rescue her however, the bell lures a bum (Jeff Corey) into the house. He steals some bottles of wine and then walks off with Cornelia's toaster which he takes to a local pawn shop. Randall (James Caan) and his two lackeys Elaine and Essie (Jennifer Billingsley and Rafael Campos) also happen to be at the pawn shop and they decide to follow the bum and see what he is up to. The bum goes to visit Sade (Ann Sothern) a local hustler who he is enamored with. Together the two of them decide to go back to Cornelia's house and rob the place blind.Check out the rest of our review at 3guys1movie.com

This movie is excellent,and it is excellent because it is simple. Some people say it is horror,but it is not. This is a film about cruelty of modern civilization,where people mostly do not care of others and everyone watches his own business."Lady in a Cage" is a story about modern society from a psycho-sociological point of view. This is not an action movie and you can not aspect too much from it.You just have to let it be what it is.This is everyday story of ordinary people with all their greed,selfishness and their personnel background. Mrs.Hilyard is possessive mother but not a dictator, she just does not know when enough is enough.She is helpless and probably wishes unconsciously his son to stay with her despite she is telling him to get married.He is desperate and just wants to be free,and obviously ready to do anything even if it means threatening to kill himself like he wrote in letter. Randall (played by James Caan) is a typical "trash of society" but his family and society made him be what he is. There is a conversation between Mrs.Hilyard and him when she says to him that ordinary tax-payers like herself pay money so that state can feed people like him in prisons. Those two are opposites-she represents everything that he hates. She reminds him on his grandmother who used to control him when he was kid. He says about his grandmother while putting a knife to Mrs.Hilyards neck-"I would kill her,if she did not die". There is another difference between them-Mrs.Hilyard is rich and Randall is poor and that intensifies his hatred about her, so he wants to steel as more as he can from her house. But he loses all of that when Mr.Pauls men arrive and grab everything and we see him beaten by them. There is always someone stronger and tougher-the Law of the Jungle. Elaine and Essie are just Randalls puppets.They do everything he tells them and sometimes enjoy in doing so,even when they kill George, a scum who arrived there first. They also wanted to kill Sade a whore who came with George and Mrs.Hilyard to leave no witness, but they failed. They payed price of their greed and as they said "there is a hot chair in this state" for them. Story comes to an end when Mrs.Hilyard stabs Randall in his eyes and he gets blinded,soon he gets killed by a car on the street-the most shocking scene in all of the movie.People finally find Mrs.Hilyard after she released herself from cage like elevator and when everything is over as usual.We do not know what happened to her son-movie leaves us wondering did he kill himself or not? It is on us to make our own conclusions. But what is the point of this movie that some viewers understood very well and some misunderstood completely? This is our materialistic society and civilization with all of its destructiveness. Like in Erich From book "The anatomy of human destructiveness", as more technologically advanced is,civilization is more destructive. There is a scene in movie when Mrs.Hilyard thinks that "someone pushed the button and dropped the bomb". She thinks on nuclear war of which people were afraid back in that time (just remember Cuban- missile crisis in 1962). In modern society lots of people are alienated despite of their success and wealth (Mrs.Hilyard is mostly alone),others are pushed on the edge as nus products (Randall and his gang,George,Sade and others) and there is high crime rate as a result of that. I am afraid of how it is going to be in a future when it was like that in past and the same (if not worse) is now. Is it going to get worse or better? Nobody hears Mrs.Hilyard ringing for help endlessly,everyone went on vacation.Nobody cares. Attention of people is attracted only on the end when they face the horror (blinded Randall on the street gets killed by a car and Mrs.Hilyard yelling for help). But when everything is over,endless line of vehicles proceeds further. People who were interrupted for a moment go to their direction,life goes on,civilization keeps functioning like nothing happened. Just another day in a big city. The point of this movie is contained in Mrs.Hilyards words-"We taught that we defeated jungle by building our modern cities, but we just made it a new foundations". Just like in Guns n Roses song-"Welcome to the Jungle".

Watching "Lady in a Cage" made me feel really sorry for all the canary birds in this world. Imagine yourself being trapped in a too small cage, day in day out, and helplessly having to observe everything that happens around you. They could constantly live in fear for all we know. Any movie that subconsciously forces you to contemplate about such a matter has got to be at least a bit remarkable, and this "Lady in a Cage" is indeed one of the most perplexing (yet still sadly underrated) movies of the entire 60's decade. Olivia De Havilland portrays – marvelously, I may add – the wealthy poetess Cornelia Hilyard who gets trapped in her home elevator whilst her only son is out celebrating the 4th of July weekend. She desperately rings the device's emergency alarm, but this noise only lures people with bad intentions towards her house. Whilst stuck several feet above the ground, a drunken and homeless religion freak, his greedy prostitute compliance and a trio of youthful but very sadistic thugs successively invade Mrs. Hilyard's home. The concept of the film sounds very simplistic, but it's much more than just a routine and sleazy thriller. The atmosphere is enormously disturbing, the overall tone as well as the on screen brutality and depicted violence are far ahead of their time (1964, remember?) and several well-scripted sub plots and detailed character drawings make the film far more complex than it superficially appears. The perpetrators aren't your ordinary petty thieves but deeply disturbed human beings and the harrowing relationship between Mrs. Hilyard and her son (which is too unique to reveal here) actually even deserved a whole separate screenplay on its own. Director Walter Grauman also succeeds in creating a twisted & severely depressing world perspective here. Mrs. Hilyard's house lies next to a very busy road, where cars are jammed in traffic continuously and people undoubtedly hear the alarm bell, but no one bothers to check whether his/help is required. All these aspects suggest that "Lady in a Cage" is a cinematic study in sociology as much as it is a claustrophobic thriller, but – be advised – it primarily is a strong & uncompromising chiller, and the squeamish and/or people with a sensitive nerve system might have difficulties with it. Olivia de Havilland's performance is truly absorbing, as said, but she's definitely not the only acting highlight of the film. James Caan delivers what unquestionably has to be one of the strongest big screen debuts ever as the genuinely petrifying leader of the delinquents. Perhaps not ideal for all tastes & likings, but if you do decide to watch "Lady in a Cage", it will become one of those film experiences that haunt and scare you forever.