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Lady in a Cage

Lady in a Cage

Walter Grauman

  • 1964
  • USA
  • Thriller
  • 1h34mn
  • Original version with French subtitles
  • Black and white
Stuck in her home elevator, and unable to move due to a fractured hipbone, a woman is terrorised by burglars.
"In the name of humanity, let me out of my cage!”, yells Cornelia to her aggressors. But humanity is quite absent in this pioneer of home invasion movies, one of the rare feature films made by TV director Walter Grauman. From the opening scene, with its Saul Bass-style slashed title and credits, and shrill music by Paul Glass - the spectacle of collective indifference gives the tone. Almost conceptual, a harrowing concentration of mental torture and neurosis, this nightmare outlines its misanthropic parabole on civilisation annihilated by the urban jungle, with no hope of return. Opposite a terrifying young James Caan, the amazing 58-year-old Olivia de Havilland delivers the most harrowing performance of her career.

Stephen Sayadian

When I was eleven years-old I saw Walter Grauman's Lady In A Cage at a drive-in theater in Chicago. I was already a horror movie veteran and didn't spook easily, but Lady In A Cage scared the childhood right out of me. I was in a full-blown panic attack from the opening Saul Bass inspired credits. This was my kind of nasty; urban squalor, doped-up punks, teenage sex and splashes of the vital fluid. Six decades later it remains one of the pivotal moments of my prepubescent years.

Screenings

08/09 • 14h30 • Screen 100
Session presented by Stephen Sayadian

Credits

  • With : Olivia de Havilland, James Caan, Jennifer Billingsley, Jeff Corey, Ann Sothern...
  • Screenplay : Luther Davis
  • Photography : Lee Garmes
  • Editing : Leon Barsha
  • Music by : Paul Glass
  • Production : Luther Davis