'Caught' is nearly great and very ambitious film-noir exercise by great master Max Ophüls. This movie is undeservedly and too often overlooked that it is almost forgotten. Even by the fans of film-noir genre. The story revolves around novice model Leonora Eames (Barbara Bel Geddes in one of her best roles), who is gorgeous, but naive gal who has the dreams about romantic marriage with wealthy guy. At first, everything seems to be going great, but then director Max Ophüls twists and turns this fairytale about American Dream all upside down and with that he manipulates and playes with the viewer. In that era, movies about poor girl finding her wealthy prince were very popular, and they usually started and ended like fairytales. 'Caught' is using the same formula, but only in a quite sadistic way. The story winds up into the place where there can't be any good outcome, thus leaveing the veiwer in the same desparate mood as the main heroine of the story. The ending is total hack job, but one can probably understand the times the film was made and the studio system that ruled the film industry.
'Caught' is too good movie to be so unfairly overlooked.
'Caught' is too good movie to be so unfairly overlooked.