Caged Fury (1948) Poster

(1948)

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6/10
Typical Pine-Thomas Low Budget Programmer
JohnHowardReid19 July 2008
The producing team of William Howard Pine and William C. Thomas could be said to have been in charge of Paramount's "B" unit. They were known around Hollywood as "the two dollar Bills". The reason for this nickname can be found in the low budget of many (though not all) of their offerings. In this one, the circus background provides plenty of opportunities for its hoary script to enliven proceedings by inserting loads of painfully obvious stock footage.

Fortunately, Mary Beth Hughes is in this movie and does what she can to save the day, although it is Buster Crabbe as the charismatic Smiley who benefits most from the attentions of director and photographer. The other players are quite flat.
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5/10
Another B nearly worthy of an "A".
mark.waltz10 September 2019
Warning: Spoilers
In spite of the overabundance of supposed circus lion abuse, this Pine/Thomas programmer is top notch entertainment, no classic but entertaining enough and filled with some knuckle biting tension. Sheila Ryan is a rising lion tamer who finds herself in danger due to presumed elements of sabotage. There is more than one moment when she finds herself the victim of a clawing lion, but if somebody was constantly cracking a whip at you or threatening to toss a chair in your face, you wouldn't feel like purring either. It's pretty obvious from the start who the culprit is, and thanks to a miracle of ridiculous timing, their demise isn't as permanent as Ryan and lover Richard Denning believe it to be.

Getting past the intense lion taming scenes expresses relief that these type of acts are supposedly all in the past. Certainly, the Lions seem to be treated well until they are on stage, and watching one lion doing a tight rope act is very tense. Buster Crabbe gives an excellent performance as the veteran clown, rivaling James Stewart in "The Greatest Show on Earth". This film doesn't stop on thrills for a second, even concluding with an intense fire sequence and dozens of circus animals and audience members in peril. The reason for my "Simply just average" score is the one absurd twist at the end that I saw coming and just found totally silly.
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6/10
Movies like this contribute to coulrophobia (the fear of clowns).
planktonrules3 February 2020
This is a B-movie from Pine-Thomas Productions, the B unit from Paramount Pictures. And, like a typical B, it runs about an hour in length and stars lesser talent from the studio--in this case Richard Denning and Buster Crabbe.

The story is set at a traveling circus. Several accidents have occurred with the lion taming act. First, Lola is killed while doing the act. Second, Blaney (Denning) is nearly killed when a lion goes berserk and his gun filled with blanks doesn't work. In the process, the clown, Smiley (Crabbe) is injured...and Blaney thinks Smiley is behind all these so-called accidents. But they need to prove it first....and that means keeping a close eye on Smiley.

It must have been interesting for the actors to make this film, as they really did have to do some lion taming in the movie. I hope they paid them a bonus for all this work!!

Overall, an enjoyable and quick film...with a satisfying ending. Worth seeing.
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6/10
Serviceable enough programmer running about an hour.
MikeF-69 July 2019
This is a circus thriller with romantic lion tamers, treacherous clowns, and a lot of beautiful animals being abused. The stars are young lovers Blaney and Kit (Richard Denning and Sheila Ryan) who develop a lion taming act together when star attraction Lola (Mary Beth Hughes) is killed by the ornery lion, Samson. What nobody knows is that Lola's death was engineered by the clown Smiley (Larry "Buster" Crabbe) to make way for the promotion of Kit who he loves. It is actually Buster Crabbe in a rare villain role who is the main attraction in the center ring. He is the actor with screen presence and charisma who holds the movie together through a lot of standard fist fights, fires, and car crashes. "Caged Fury" only has 26 votes and one user comment at the database so, if you see this you are among an elite few (sarcasm alert).
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