(1949)
3
Michael Costello
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.
Caught on AllMovie
Caught (1949)
