StunnaKrypto Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

SteinMo What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Michael Brooks Spend 94 precious minutes watching a bunch of inane, base characters from the absolute extreme low spectrum of consciousness and humanity go through the motions. Olivia de Havilland must have needed the money to have lowered herself to this level. It's not clever like some of the other thrillers of the period with a distinct lack of imagination and creativity in scripting, and production values that I found lacking in subtlety. I found scant suspense and entertainment value here, just frustration at watching such an inane scenario that therein existed potential unrealised.I want my 94 mins back.

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.

writers_reign One of the hallmarks of a superior screenplay is the way it deals with 'awkward' questions whilst one of the hallmarks of a good movie is that 'awkward' questions don't begin to raise their quizzical heads until long after you reach home. So: Having established in the first minute of screen time that Olivia de Havilland is perfectly able to walk, albeit slowly, with the aid of a walking stick and further established inside another minute - via an exchange of dialogue with her son, about to leave her alone in the house for several days - that she will be able to dispense with the walking stick in just a few weeks, why, we wonder, has she seen fit to install an elevator that would not be out of place in a four-star hotel, in a modest-sized house in which the only stairs on view are straight and number no more than twenty treads at the outside. Why not install a stairlift? Okay, let that one go for a moment; after eleven minutes screen time the power fails leaving her suspended some six or seven feet above the ground. Eventually she presses the alarm button which rings, not, as we might suppose, in the local police station/doctor's surgery etc but in an alley at the side of the house which depends on 1) someone passing by at the exact time the alarm sounds and 2) no noise from traffic on the large highway that runs in front of the house. Okay, let THAT one go, too. When a passing wino (Jeff Corey) stumbles into the kitchen deHavilland, who can't see who it is, launches into what SHE thinks is logical exposition: A few months ago she broke her hip and had the elevator installed until it mended. This is where it falls down. To design, build and install such an elevator would take about three times as long as it would for the hip to heal so immediately the whole premise is out the window. When you're thinking this whilst WATCHING the film you know they're in trouble. Having said that it's certainly watchable; deHavilland, clearly anxious to put Melanie Wilks behind her, reveals a backbone (if not a hipbone) and Corey and Ann Sothern turn in fine support. Worth a look.

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.