TOP 25 CAMP FILMS OF ALL TIME - 16

LADY IN A CAGE

Lady in a Cage is one filthy nasty film. If I had to put my finger into the film, I'm sure it would come out dirty. And who'd have thought it happens to the lovely demure screen goddess, Olivia De Havilland who shall be known as Livvy from now on incase I start typing "Olive" by accident.

So Livvy is Mrs Hilyard. A well to do lady who has a rather toooooo toooooo tooooo close a fondness for her son, Malcolm. She has perfect hair and a perfect house but a creepy fascination with her son.Kind of like a Roman love if you get my drift. She also has had an operation on her leg so a mechanical lift is installed. Think an old elevator in old houses without the front really. So Malcolm goes away for the weekend and through some freak accidents on the hot summer's afternoon, Mrs Hilyard gets in the lift and before it can get to the first floor, the electricity cuts out leaving her in limbo and this is where things get fucked up.

As she calls for help, a few drunks let themselves in to her wine cellar as the door is open and help themselves. Then some 60s wild children, Essie, Elaine and Randall. Randall is played by James Caan and he's wearing a tight pair of jeans to show what religion he isn't. It's lovely to see with his manly chest. They basically break poor Mrs Hilyard and rip apart her house. The heat rises as it's 4th July and Mrs Hilyard sweats. Mrs Hilyard is the voice of reason but resorts to desperate measures when she discovers that her son has written a letter saying that he's leaving her. She gets mighty pissed off at the mess these hooligans are making and throws herself out to escape, Randall tries to torture her some more but he gets stabbed in the eyes and ends up woth his head squzashed under a car tyre and Mrs Hilyard is free from her cage.

The plot builds and it's all very heavy as Mrs Hilyard feels isolated and frightened. Liek any good 60s Grand Guignol movie, we're only too happy to see a woman in peril - namely Livvy De Havilland. James Caan has clearly descended from the Method school of acting as his performance is filled with torment and tension. He teases Mrs Hilyard by asking her to keep his make shift knives between her boobs by telling her "Warm them up nice Mommy"

Mrs Hilyard really does see everything that's wrong with her relationship with Malcolm although the psychological tension gets unbearable and the viewer is desperate for her to escape her cage that she's trapped in. The small set and everything surrounding this cage makes it all the more unbearable. The gore level is at a minimum and it's only one small twist at the end that makes it Grand Guignol when we see that young Malcolm wasn't a total loser for staying with his mother. If you want a lot of sweating, 60s stars and Livvy and a hotter than hot James Caan, then this movie is your treat!

Some classic scenes freaked me out in this movie.

- Even as the credits roll at the start, the first scene is of loads of cars driving past but with a dead dog lying in the road - a metaphor for the bitch in the house who doesn't have any attention paid when she is struggling to survive???

- James Caan wearing jeans that are just fabulous. He's a man's man.

- Ann Sothern playing a fat drunk who loves the booze, Sue Ellen eat your heart out!

- James telling Livvy to "Warm them nice Mommy"

- James criticising Livvy on her parenting skills - "I bet you had him at it til he was 12!!! Kept him sucking?!"

James to Livvy "I had a grandmother like you, foxy. You know she tried to keep me at it"

- Livvy gets bitch slapped about. And no wonder, she's a bit blah until she decides the only way to get out of the situation is to break her arms and legs and kill her captors.

This is a movie to really concentrate on but anything with Livvy de Havilland has to be good!