what happens in this elevator - Lady in A Cage (1964)

"I AM TRAPPED IN A SMALL, PRIVATE ELEVATOR!"

Olivia de Havilland warns you: “spoilers!”

I warn you: trigger warning for mentions of assault, abuse.

Lady in a Cage (1964)

Directed by: Walter Grauman

Starring: Olivia de Havilland, James Caan, Jennifer Billingsley, Jeff Corey, Ann Sothern, Rafael Campos

Running time: 94 minutes

Original release date: July 8, 1964

but first

I know I tend to post the trailer at the end but I could not resist starting with this masterpiece.

the plot in brief

A miserably hot 4th of July weekend. Alone at home, wealthy widow Cornelia Hilyard (de Havilland), who is recovering from a broken hip, is trapped between floors in her mansion’s elevator after an electrical power failure. Trying for help via the elevator’s emergency alarm, she attracts the attention of an unsympathetic drunk derelict (Corey), who makes off with a few items from the house.

Little does Cornelia know that her day is about to get significantly worse - and soon she’s forced to watch in horror as intruders ransack her home…

“have we an anti-Satan missile?!”

If we’re to look at Lady in a Cage from a storytelling perspective, we need to first set it into a very important context: the boiling pot that was the 1960s in the United States. In a short space of time (we’re talking 1962 to early 1964), the Cuban Missile Crisis, the JFK assassination, the Boston Strangler and the murder of Kitty Genovese (which happened just four months before this movie came out) had put the country on edge.

Setting this movie on a weekend where the weather is the kind of hot that makes you want to sit in a walk-in freezer and ponder your life choices is a good move; over the Saul Bass-inspired opening credits, we get a number of shots which are designed to make you ill at ease. A girl runs her roller-skate over the leg of a man lying on the sidewalk. A dog lies dead on the street as cars speed by, hoping to beat the 4th of July traffic. People are sweating, people are uncomfortable - there is a jazz-like discord to the opening of this film, and by the time we move into the house of our main character, we’re already acutely aware that there is something in the air.

Something that Cornelia Hilyard firmly is not.

We first meet her son, Malcolm (William Swan), observing him as he is finishing up writing a letter. We cannot see all of the letter but we can definitely see the words “I can’t go on this way”. Malcolm leaves the letter in the room, before venturing out onto the landing and calling for his mother (who he rather confusingly refers to as “darling”). The second Cornelia enters (stage left) we find out two very important things just from the way the interaction plays out: 1) Cornelia is the dictionary definition of the “my beloved smother” trope and 2) is completely oblivious to the fact that Malcolm cannot fucking stand it anymore, something that is hammered home for the viewer with a second look at the letter, a dramatic closeup of the words “I’ll kill myself”.

At this point, a third, and arguably the most important character in the movie is introduced: the elevator AKA the titular cage. An old school elevator which looks like a tiny jail cell, it moves at a speed so slow, Cornelia is seen to take a book and a radio with her for the journey (in the time it takes the elevator to get her downstairs, Malcolm has walked all the way down the stairs, and to the kitchen, tumbleweed presumably just out of shot). As someone with claustrophobia, I can’t begin to imagine getting stuck between two floors of your own house, with both floors in view but just out of reach, and absolutely no way to call for help apart from a button which triggers the world’s most ineffectual alarm.

“the inner machinations of my mind are an enigma”

Malcolm leaves (and is not seen again for the rest of the movie, fate firmly unknown) and pretty much immediately after he’s left, a series of Benny Hill-sketch-esque events outside cause a power outage, leaving Cornelia stuck in the elevator with no aircon and nobody around to help her.

There is a sense of being outside of the normal remits of time from this point out, because we have no idea how many hours pass for Cornelia. Despite the fact that she briefly turns on the radio and is told in no uncertain terms that people are driving out for the holiday weekend, she still calls out to her empty house for help and, quite politely but firmly, addresses the workmen she imagines are hard at work on fixing the electricity.

That we then immediately cut to a 4th of July parade taking place, with the streets lined with people, should give you some hint as to how much this is not happening.

This is when the inner monologue comes in, and let me tell you, having venerated Hollywood Grande Dame Olivia de Havilland pass the time by making up poems in her head and singing “Alouette, gentille alouette” with the zest of Edith Piaf while getting progressively sweatier and more desperate is *chef’s kiss* eleven out of ten no notes. She is absolutely spectacular in the role, and apparently had a really good time making the movie, which is nice because Cornelia as a character really ends up going through it and the fact that she could lay down a performance like this and still have a good time doing it is a testament to her professionalism.

Goons!

I first found out about this movie from the excellent Evolution of Horror podcast episode (which discusses this movie and 1967’s Wait Until Dark and yes it is on my list, don’t worry, I know) in which host Mike Muncer and guest Stacie Ponder both profess their love for it. In the episode, Stacie describes the movie’s villains as a set of Matryoshka dolls, in that just when you think the worst of them has come along, another, even worse villain shows up which is pretty accurate, so lets talk goons, shall we?

Imagine, if you will, a video game where all of these people are end of level bosses.

level 1 - George L. Brady Jr. aka “Repent” (because it’s printed all over his hands, in thick and very legible ink, you see)

Repent (Jeff Corey) is drawn to the house by the sound of the alarm outside, looking and moving and acting like a cartoon interpretation of a drunk. He breaks in, and provides one of the film’s most stunning shots: Cornelia is made aware of his presence by just spotting his eye peeping at her from behind a curtain.

level 2 - Sade (WHO DID NOTHING WRONG)

Having sold off a bunch of the items he stole (including a toaster), Repent goes to see his acquaintance Sade (Ann Sothern), a hustler who is roped into Repent’s plan to go back and make off with more goods. Sade essentially goes with because 1) she needs money and 2) Repent says he needs someone to help keep him on track because he fears there’s a chance he might get distracted by the large collection of wine Cornelia has. There is a sense that neither of them are of nasty intent; both Repent and Sade just want a bit of money to get by, and are unfortunate enough to have their paths crossed by the wrong set of hoodlums.

level 3 - Elaine (at all times pronounced as EEEEEEEEE LAINEEE) and Essie (Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man)

Elaine and Essie are slightly more nasty, with Essie just edging it out over Elaine because Essie is very willing to get a little crazy with a knife and also is generally a very off-putting presence of a man. Elaine, a space-y, floaty weirdo (as per the trailer) with a hint of a tragic undercurrent (she has a black eye throughout her scenes and it is implied she’s Randall’s long-suffering girlfriend, please connect the dots) doesn’t actually hurt anyone, but her menace comes from her being completely unpredictable.

The final boss: Randall Simpson O'Connell

Randall Simpson O’Connell, a razor wire of a man who scares the shit out of Cornelia by repeatedly just burping at her and taunting her (prompting Cornelia to fully lay bare her privilege and classist beliefs by saying, and I quote: You're one of the many bits of offal produced by the welfare state. You're what so much of my tax dollars goes to the care and feeding of! like, jesus fuck woman) is played by James Caan in his first credited role.

Oh no, wait, sorry.

Sweaty, with his shirt open and always looking on the verge of just shanking you, Caan plays a blinder for his first proper go around. This is just raw star power, menace behind every word and you can see the bones of the man who will go on to play Sonny Corleone just eight years later. The fact that people were negatively comparing him to his future co-star Marlon Brando amuses me greatly because bitch, where? Like, a sweaty man with his shirt open does not a copy of Brando make, my dudes.

To come back to the storytelling of it, this is where shit really hits the fan. For most of the rest of the film, we watch Cornelia’s house being ransacked by the goons, with a particular nadir coming when Essie corners Repent behind the chair Sade is sitting on and stabs him to death, out of sight from the camera but in full earshot of a terrified Sade.

Randall is fully intending on killing Cornelia, but Essie ends up finding Malcolm’s letter - we then discover two things: 1) Malcolm is not only completely fed up with his ma’s bullshit, he is also possibly gay and seriously contemplating suicide if she does not back the fuck off and let him breathe for a second and 2) there is a significant amount of money sitting in a safe in the living room.

With Cornelia having fainted upon the contents of the letter being revealed, the three lock Sade in a room and go looking for the money. What they don’t know is that Sade had previously alerted Mr. Paul (the proprietor of the junkyard Repent sold the toaster to) to what was happening in the house, and Mr. Paul and his men have pulled up outside the house.

In the chaos, Cornelia manages to escape from the elevator, but not without suffering a nasty fall. She drags herself out the door, but is followed by Randall. Cornelia then blinds him with two makeshift shivs she fashioned out of the broken elevator door (!!!!) and as he flails around the house, Cornelia mocks him before the stress gets to her and she experiences a moment of temporary insanity which makes her mistake Essie for Malcolm, and in talking to who she thinks is her son, Cornelia is hit with a moment of clarity and expresses regret for her monstrous hold over him.

She manages to crawl back out the door and Randall follows her, stumbling blindly into the road before being hit by a car (quite fucking spectacularly so, it dents half his skull in), bringing traffic to a standstill. Cornelia finally gets the help she needs, Essie and Elaine are arrested and in trying to escape they crash a car into the electric box, restarting the electricity and bringing the power back to the elevator.

The film ends with Cornelia, exhausted, dehydrated but alive, sitting outside.

“a feeling, thinking human being”

Lady in a Cage, while financially successful, had critics tearing strips off it at the time (Bosley Crowther wrote a special column in the NYT calling the movie reprehensible, which… sure?). It’s undergone somewhat of a reassessment and I for one am glad to have had the chance to talk about it here.

While there is not much plot going on, Lady in a Cage nevertheless sets out a strong framework for the home invasion horror genre (this movie leans more towards the harder end of the thriller, but I argue that it does count as horror for that very reason). The fifties and sixties brought a sense of unease and a fear of the other firmly into fold in the US, and this is one of the first movies to really play on that paranoia.

In Cornelia, we have a lead who makes it very hard to root for her survival just because she’s presented as completely oblivious; to her son’s wants and needs, to the fact that the world does not revolve exclusively around her, to the fact that her attitudes are really quite shitty and classist. It is to de Havilland’s credit that we do root for her, because we really do want her to actually have that revelation that she has at the end.

We want Cornelia to pull through, we want to believe that after all is said and done, she tracks Malcolm down and manages to apologize to him. We want to believe that this experience, this gruesome experience, will allow her to reevaluate her life and her attitudes, because Olivia de Havilland plays her so, so well. And while you could argue that there is a better movie hidden in there somewhere, a movie where the goons enter the picture much earlier and Cornelia ends up having to think on her feet to suss out dynamics and play them off against each other in order to escape for example, as it is, Lady in a Cage is unique and uniquely nasty for the era it’s from.

I certainly respect the hell out of de Havilland for taking on this role. Especially because it pissed off notorious gossip columnist Hedda Hopper to the extent that she penned a column which essentially amounted to “WHY DID YA DO IT, OLIVIA????”.

Dunno, Hedda. Probs because it sounded fun, babes.