Caught

Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Ryan

Powerhouse film from 1949. A young woman, naive and fresh to the big city, yearns to meet a rich man who will provide for her and with whom she can live happily ever after. Film falls into the be-careful-what-you-wish-for category.

Ryan was an intense threatening presence...this may have been his finest role. His disgust and cynicism (modeled after Howard Hughes), the notion that he could buy anything or anybody he wanted warped his life view. He was the monster the anti-capitalists have been warning about since Marx.

Nice supporting role by James Mason as a good-guy doctor who tries to free BBG from her fate. The plot resolution was too pat but by that time I was so thoroughly absorbed in the characters that I didn't care.

A classic.

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