CAUGHT

The least typical of Max Ophuls' masterpieces, "Caught" is a Women's Picture, written with a steely edge by Arthur Laurents. Barbara Bel Geddes is outstanding as the girl who marries money in the shape of Robert Ryan's sociopathic multi-millionaire, modelled so we are told on Howard Hughes, but he treats her with such contempt she runs away and gets a job as a receptionist to James Mason's struggling doctor. It's a triangle quite unlike other triangles in the movies of the time; there is a psychological depth at play here rare in a genre picture of its kind and both Mason and Ryan are superb while Ophuls' framing of the characters greatly enhances the relationships between them, (the distance between Ryan and Bel Geddes in his mansion, the close proximity between Mason and Bel Geddes in the office scenes).

In lesser hands this might have simply been novelettish but it isn't the superficiality of the material that interests Ophuls but how he can manipulate the material so the film is all of a piece. The least typical of Ophuls, I said; perhaps not. Shot after wonderful shot reveals this to be the work of one of cinema's great stylists and it really shouldn't be missed.