"Pile Out, You Tramps! It's The End Of The Line!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                            How many times, girls, have we wanted to say that?  That is the opening line of "Caged," the iconic 1950 film that became the gold standard for women in prison dramas, but, over the years, has become such a camp fest.

.                                 Start with the cast.  Eleanor Parker as innocent, inexperienced Marie Allen.  Good girl with all the bad breaks. From this, who could imagine her playing a Machiavellian baroness who wants to send the kids off to boarding school in "The Sound Of Music?"  Then there is Oliver Deering as a tragic prisoner, Jan Sterling as a blonde toughie, Lee Patrick as a gang leader, and Ellen Corby as a hooker!!!!!!!!!! Can you imagine?  Grandma Walton as a hooker?

                                      The cast is sterling, and they play it for all it is worth.

                                       But the real show stealer here, and an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress, is Hope Emerson, as Evelyn Ward, the dykiest bull Dyke this side of the Hudson.  She could have patented the term "beans n' franks lesbian" right on the spot!  The scene where she dresses up for a date with a man is hilarious.  Whom is she kidding?  Not us! A Laura Ashely type dress on this woman?  And what kind of a man other than a butch trucker, would go out with her???????????  No, she has some lipstick lesbo cutie waiting for her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   But she does get her comeuppance!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        "Caged" is a laugh a minute of pure entertainment.  It might have been taken seriously in 1950, though I wonder.

                                           Don't mess with these babes, dolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!