Cage of Gold
He’s pushy and won’t take no for an answer, but then he never would, Wing Commander Bill Glennan who once upon a time long ago broke the heart of young Judith Moray; a chance encounter on the London underground sees him greeted coldly, but he insists, following her to the restaurant where she has a date with Doctor Alan Kearn and asking to meet her the following day.
Their affair resumed, when Judith finds that she is pregnant Bill grudgingly agrees to marry her but vanishes the morning after when he realises that with no money of her own he will have to support the family; reported as dead in a plane crash soon after, she is freed, and Alan agrees to marry her and raise her son as his own, but one Christmas as she prepares a party for the local children there is a fateful caller who does not bring the joy of the season…
Directed by The Bells Go Down’s Basil Dearden, Jean Simmons is Judith Moray, the woman caught in the Cage of Gold, named for La Cage D’or, the Parisian nightclub frequented by Bill (David Farrar) in his prolonged absence, a smuggler who in order to pay off his debt handed his passport over to the accomplice who actually went down in the ocean in his stead, while James Donald is the dependable but dull Alan Kearn.
A post-war melodrama written by Jack Whittingham, the dire financial situation of Judith might be taken more seriously were she not a portrait artist with her own studio who dines out dressed in gowns, treated as property by both Kearn and Glennan, the supporting cast more interesting than the leads, Gladys Henson as housekeeper Waddy, Harcourt Williams as the elder Doctor Kearn and Herbert Lom reliably sinister and bringing a more serious tone, albeit briefly, as Rahman, head of the smuggling ring.
The men other than Alan conniving and the woman highly-strung and needy, Wing Commander Odious willing to trample over anyone for money and nightclub singer Marie Jouvet (Casablanca’s Madeleine Lebeau) just as blinded by his supposed charm, the whole matter could have been cleared up quickly had Judith and Alan called the police immediately that Bill showed up and tried to blackmail them, reporting him for faking his own death and demanding the marriage been annulled for desertion.
Restored in 4K for StudioCanal’s Vintage Classics range, the new edition of Cage of Gold is supported by an enthusiastic interview with fashion lecturer Liz Tregenza who discusses the contrasting wardrobes of leading ladies Simmons and Lebeau, the former principally comprised of items from the collection made by designer Frederick Starke for Simmons’ own twenty-first birthday celebrations in January 1950, the same year the film was released.
