Max Ophüls’ Caught (1949)

Shot by Lee Garmes, Max Ophüls’ Caught is deeply gorgeous, every shot a work of art, with all of these de-stabilizing points of view, and in-camera “tricks” where human beings seem either miniaturized or giganticized – depending on the power hierarchies at play in any given scene. Again, this stuff is done in camera, but there are times when the effect is so striking you could swear the image had been doctored. A nervewracking tale of a young woman (Barbara Bel Geddes, heartbreakingly young and soooo open and accessible), kind of adrift in Los Angeles, going to “charm” school, where she learns how to be pleasing to men, doing a little modeling … all of this is basically one step away from prostitution, which the film makes explicit. The whole idea is to marry rich. She’s bought into it, she thinks that’s the only way she will survive, even though somehow she has maintained her ideals. The thought of going after a man for his money abhors her. She wants love.

Instead, she is the one snagged up by a rich man, the richest man, played by Robert Ryan at his most uncompromising iciness. Before she knows what’s happened, she’s locked up – literally – in his massive mansion – and is kept up all hours of the day and night, for the off chance that he might come home and need a hostess. It’s a nightmare.

She flees, and gets a job as a receptionist in a doctor’s office (the doctor played, with beautiful sympathy by James Mason). He has no idea she was the wife of a bazillionaire, even though there’s something about her hair style and her dress that makes him think something’s not quite on the level. She lives in a horrid little room, and immerses herself in her new job, finding capabilities she never knew she had. Of course, though, the past has a way of re-asserting itself. She is still married, after all. Robert Ryan is still out there. And he knows how to manipulate this poor young woman, and he does. The movie seesaws wildly between Long Island and Manhattan – between the doctor’s office and Robert Ryan’s mauseoleum of a mansion, where she is kept sleep-deprived – even when pregnant – to be ready for him should he need her. It’s a Gaslight-type situation. James Mason finds himself falling in love with her, but he is also really turned off when he hears her advising a little girl patient that it’s important to do such-and-such if she wants to marry a rich man. He tells her that it’s fine if SHE believes that, but he won’t have her pushing her silly beliefs onto his clients, many of whom are poor. Money isn’t everything. There are all kinds of interesting ideas at play here, and the acting is top-notch.

But LOOK at these shots. Max Ophüls’ camera floated through rooms, intricate but elegant, smooth and beautiful – almost like it was a living thing (witness his masterpiece, The Earrings of Madame de …. There are some real stunning camera moves throughout (one in particular where James Mason and the other doctor in his practice talk about life, all while her empty desk looms between them: lots of unsaid things swirling around). I was mostly taken though with the placement of figures in the frame.

Every single shot features massive differences in status, placement, so that … Robert Ryan, who was massive, sometimes looks tiny, with Barbara Bel Geddes looming over him, or, the other way around. So inventive. So disturbing.