bkoganbing As so many of her contemporary movie queens of the past decade Olivia DeHavilland went into horror films It's a sad commentary on the lack of roles she was getting at that point. By the next decade she was not doing this sort of film any more.In Lady In A Cage she plays a housebound woman who is recovering from a broken hip and had a special elevator installed for her use. She's rich and does poetry on the side and she's kept her son William Swan tied to her apron strings. When he leaves for the 4th of July weekend an accident happens and the power goes out while she's stuck in mid air in that elevator.When it rains it pours. A wino played by Jeff Corey breaks in and starts stealing a lot of expensive things. He brings in a partner a very frowzy Ann Sothern who's seen her share of men and booze. While trying to fence some of what they've stolen they attract a trio of Charles Manson wannabes played by James Caan, Jennifer Billingsley, and Rafael Campos.So while all of them party and menace DeHavilland they also aren't happy with each other, the different generation of thieves.I have to say Caan made an impressive screen debut, he was one frightening dude. Campos who usually played nice kids is also one nasty strung out individual. Billingsley was beautiful, but she'll be Sothern in 10 years and also strung out.Olivia's other venture into the horror genre was Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte and Lady In A Cage is not as good as that one. But it does have its moments.One thing that was overlooked. Being trapped as she was there certainly was no opportunity to use any facilities. Those 48 hours or so in the cage might have made it and Olivia really smell.Other than not accounting for that Lady In A Cage was an OK horror film

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS***Olivia de Havilland is the incapacitated woman of the house Cornelia Hilyard who's babying of her 30 year old mamma's boy son Malcolm, William Swan, has driven him to just about to commit suicide just to get from under her apron strings. It's on a July 4th Holiday weekend that Malcolm plans to do himself in by taking a ride out in the country and blowing his brains out. It's then that Cornelia ends up stuck in her in-house elevator and menaced by the three teenage psychos who just escape from a youth reformatory looking for action and something to steal. With a blackout hitting the city and all electrical circuits out Cornelia can't get any help to free herself but at first does get a number of neighborhood visitors including the drunk religious nut George L. "Repent" Brady Jr., Jeff Corey. and his fellow drunkard and drinking partner over the hill hooker Sade, Ann Southern.The three escaped juvenile delinquents lead by the grinning hairy chested and burping Randall Simpson O'Connor, James Caan, who's made to look like a young and rebellious Marlon Brando-but comes across more like a young and slimmed down looking Donald Trump-plan to ransack the place and murder after brutally torturing Cornelia so there won't be any witnesses to their crimes. The two fellow nut cases that O'Connor has with him the spaced out,on drugs and alcohol, Elaine, Jennifer Binningsley, and what looks like a pot smoking and severely mentally retarded Essie, Rafael Compos, are of no help to him and screw him up and his "Master Plan" at every turn. It's not long that both Bradly Jr. is put away by a kill crazy Essie, under orders for his boss O'Connor, who stabs the pleading for his life drunk to death in order to shut him up and keep him from reciting the bible at every given opportunity. Sade in seeing the writing on the wall, in her being targeted to be murdered, escapes by locking herself into a closet and holding her breath not to be heard or noticed by the deranged trio.***SPOILERS*** It's when Cornelia finds out through a good-by cruel world letter left to her by her son Malcolm what his plans are she tries to make her escape by jumping out of the stuck elevator and breaking both her legs. O'Connor in then trying to murder the crawling to safety Cornelia ends up getting his eyes gouged out by what looked like two metal toothpicks she had hidden in her bra and ends up blindly walking or staggering into traffic and run over and crushed like road kill. Essie, who in fact can't drive, and Elaine end up getting caught by the police when the car Essie was driving lost control of slammed into a garbage dumpster. With her now rescued and out of danger Cornelia wants to find out if her son Malcolm didn't go through with his planned suicide. And hopefully if he didn't she'll do everything possible not to interfere with his life that was the very reason that been driving him to attempt to do it!

Lechuguilla What is the great Olivia de Havilland doing in a movie like this? The script is way, way beneath her.The film starts out okay. A wealthy, older lady needs an in-house elevator as a result of a leg injury. One summer day the lift, with her in it, gets stuck between the first and second floor when the electricity goes off. The woman is trapped. Naturally, she's alone in the big house. Fortunately for the film's plot, cell phones had not yet been invented.Her predicament goes from bad to worse when an old drunk breaks in, to steal some wine. Then, the plot descends into absurdity when a gang of young hoodlums follows the wino to the house. Chaos ensues. The film is a B-grade horror flick, along the lines of "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?"Except for the performance of James Caan, acting is highly melodramatic, sometimes laughably so. The wino is hardly more than a cartoon figure. His prostitute friend, played by Ann Sothern, is unnecessary to the plot. The three hoodlums are all shallow and stereotyped. Their mentality is comparable to The Three Stooges.Cinematography is conventional. Background music is whimsical and not in-sync with the story's premise, thus diluting the suspense.Yet, the film does have some value, derived from its theme. For all of the modern inventions and conveniences, individual humans still have brute tendencies, which can surface under the right conditions. At a more general level, modern cities resemble jungles. In "Lady In A Cage", the intruders are like selfish barbarians who have breached the security gate, thus forcing humanity back into the stone age.Overall, however, the film's plot is so ridiculous and the performances are so farcical that I cannot take this film seriously.

blanche-2 Olivia de Havilland is a "Lady in a Cage" in this 1964 film also starring Ann Sothern, James Caan (in his debut), Jennifer Billingsley, Rafael Campos, and Scatman Crothers. de Havilland is an elegant, wealthy poetess who is recovering from a broken hip and is dependent on an elevator in the house - one of those European types that looks like a birdcage. After her son Malcolm has left for the weekend, an accident outside knocks out the power as she is going upstairs in the elevator. Though she hits an outside alarm, no one who can help hears it. The only ones that hear it? Any thief within a 5-mile radius. A homeless alcoholic (Jeff Corey) is first on the scene; he steals a toaster and alerts a cheap hustler, Sade (Ann Sothern, who resembles Suzanne Pleshette in this film). However, they're no match for the next bunch, played by James Caan, Jennifer Billingsley, and Rafael Campos, who seem like early Mansonites and decide everything is theirs. (Later a third group shows up, and they're the toughest yet.) All the while, the lady of the house sits in the elevator, powerless to do anything about the destruction around her.This is a harrowing movie, very '60s in its music and the messages are familiar: the urban jungle, druggies, man's inhumanity to man, people not stopping to help, putting themselves and their own agendas first. The de Havilland character is driven to drastic measures - the movie will glue you to your TV set.The beautiful de Havilland is excellent - as she always is - as the trapped woman who not only has to deal with enemies at the gate but the fact that one of the crooks finds an accusatory note from her son which ends with a suicide threat - and she has no idea there was a problem. "He sounds gay," one of them (Campos) says. James Caan is appropriately frightening, and so hairy it looks as if hair was taped onto his body. Jennifer Billingsley is good as his whacked out, drug-laden girlfriend. Sothern's story has a big continuity hole; it's never resolved. It's always a treat to see her in anything, and she plays this down and out loser very well.Without de Havilland, this would have been a fairly lousy movie; with her, I think it's a cut above the horror films of other aging, classic film actresses like Crawford and Davis. If there is one thing de Havilland can always bring to a role besides great acting - and I write in the present tense because she's still alive - it's refinement, beauty, and class. Let's hope there's still a role she will agree to play.