Caged (1950)

At nearly fifty years old, 'Caged" isn't quite like today's women-in-prison sexploitation flicks--and that's good. But this could certainly be a prototype for those movies. Many of the same elements are here: an innocent young woman wrongly sent to prison, tough and bitter cons, unfeeling and corrupt matrons--there's even a shower scene! You'll have to look hard for any allusions to homosexuality, however; the references are so oblique that they're practically nonexistant. Still, this movie pack a wallop. It's effective and affecting.

It's a manipulative film but you won't mind. Eleanor Parker projects all the innocence and vulnerability of a wounded fawn in the starring role. As one rotten break after another befalls her in the joint, she loses that innocence and becomes transformed into a classic hardened con, a transformation greatly aided by the seemingly simple device of a head-shaving she receives from a cruel matron. The film has a plainly understood message: if no effort is made to rehabilitate inmates, all a prison is good for is to educate criminals in their chosen vocation, crime. That's another big difference between this film and the junky sexploitation pictures of more recent years--the latter don't have a message.