Legendary director Max Ophuls and accomplished cinematographer Lee Garmes, ASC lent their skills to a widely-scorned 1949 picture that has proven its worth over time.
After Adolph Hitler rose to power in Germany, many distinguished filmmakers fled the country. One was Max Ophuls, an important director in both Germany and France who struggled to gain a Hollywood foothold after emigrating to America in 1941. Ophuls survived numerous minor, anonymous jobs and a traumatic experience trying unsuccessfully to write and direct Vendetta for Howard Hughes and Preston Sturges. He then directed four American pictures: The Exile and Letter From an Unknown Woman (both 1947), Caught (1949) and The Reckless Moment (1950): though all were excellent pictures, none achieved financial success.
Enterprise Productions, Inc., which produced Caught, was established in 1946 by veteran production executives David L. Loew and Charles Einfeld to provide a home for exceptional independent projects. As defined by famed lexicographer Noah Webster, their slogan could be denoted as follows: Enterprise (noun): 1. An undertaking, especially one which involves activity, courage, energy. 2. An important or daring project.
With capitalization of $5 million, a $10 million credit line, and a releasing deal with United Artists, the company leased Harry Sherman's California Studios, which was then a decaying Hollywood facility dating from 1916. (Today, the site is home to the ultra-modern Raleigh Studios on Melrose Avenue.) Sherman had once produced Paramount's Zane Grey and Hopalong Cassidy films at California.
Enterprise's initial advertising listed five pending productions: Ramrod, The Other Love, Arch of Triumph, Body and Soul and Wild Calendar. While these and other projects reached the screen as distinguished pictures, only Body and Soul became a financial success.
Wild Calendar the working title of Caught was a novel by Libbie Block that was purchased in 1946 as a starring vehicle for Ginger Rogers. The tome concerns the unhappy marriage of Maud, a Denver girl, to a wealthy but ruthless cousin, Smith Ohlrig. While most of the Enterprise pictures were made in association with outside independent producers, Wild Calendar was to be produced solely by Enterprise on a hefty $2.5 million budget.
Kathryn Scola spent most of the second half of 1946 writing a screenplay that was subsequently turned down by both Rogers and the MPPDA censorship office. Abraham Polonsky then spent six months doctoring the script, smoothing out material that had been deemed objectionable. Several other writers later worked on the screenplay as well, but Rogers found none of their efforts acceptable, and walked off the project in December of 1947. In the meantime, censor Joseph Breen remained miffed about the script's inclusion of a "strange" relationship involving Ohlrig's brother.
On March 29, 1948, Ophuls came aboard and began working on an entirely new script with Paul Trivers. His disdain for Howard Hughes and Preston Sturges manifested itself in the character of Ohlrig, whom he gleefully invested with both men's least attractive traits. Einfeld, however, threw out the Ophuls/Trivers script and on May 31 hired Broadway playwright Arthur Laurentz to create another version, which omitted Ohlrig's brother entirely. Meanwhile, Letter From an Unknown Woman, Ophuls' directorial effort for Universal-International, opened at theaters, only to vanish soon after an artistic achievement that bombed at the box office.
Repeated production delays pushed back Caught's schedule while other pictures filled the breach. By the time of the film's planned start date, most of the studio's assets were tied up in what was expected to be its biggest hit: Arch of Triumph starring Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Charles Laughton. Advertised as "the most distinguished screen event of our time," it became a fiscal disaster which threatened Enterprise's very existence. Ending its connection with United Artists, Enterprise sealed a deal to release its coming program through MGM. Caught finally was scheduled to start shooting on July 8, under the supervision of MGM alumnus Wolfgang Reinhardt.
In the finished script, Denver carhop Maud Ames comes to New York, changes her name to Leonora Eames, and enrolls in charm school in the hope of becoming a model and marrying into money. She meets Smith Ohlrig, a handsome millionaire, who marries her just to spite his psychiatrist. A paranoid recluse subject to psychosomatic heart attacks, Ohlrig makes Leonora a virtual prisoner in his mansion; her only companion is an effeminate parasite named Franzi. Leonora flees and takes a job with the poor but dedicated Dr. Quinada. Ohlrig entices her back and makes love to her, but after he schedules a business trip, she returns to Quinada. Upon learning that she is pregnant, however, Leonara returns to Ohlrig once more. Quinada comes to take her away, but when Ohlrig demands custody of the child, she stays. For months, Ohlrig subjects her to mental torture. At last she rebels, and Ohlrig finally suffers a real heart attack. She deliberately walks off, leaving him to die. Quinada arrives to take her away and send Ohlrig to the hospital. Racked with remorse, Leonora miscarries, but nonetheless finds happiness with Quinada.
Ohlrig, played by Robert Ryan, was drawn from Howard Hughes, who therefore had script approval. Much to everyone's surprise, the tycoon asked only that Ohlrig be made to appear less obviously like himself no rumpled clothes or Texas background. A lean ex-pugilist who had become a leading player of heroic characters, Ryan was happy to score an offbeat role as a psychotic villain. Years later, Ryan told an audience at UCLA that "Howard knew all about it and even encouraged me to 'play him like a son of a bitch.'"
Leonora, the story's central figure, was a difficult role to cast; she had to be pretty without being glamorous, and ambitious without being pushy. At the last moment, another Hughes contractee, Barbara Bel Geddes, was selected. The intellectual daughter of famed designer Norman Bel Geddes, she had to "dumb down" for the role, but proved to be the perfect choice.
Kirk Douglas had been announced for the role of Dr. Quinada, but delays in the starting date left him unavailable. In what was considered a major coup, the most popular actor in England, James Mason, ended up filling the physician's shoes. In addition to the opportunity to work in America, Enterprise's offer of $150,000 plus a percentage and first billing helped, plus the fact that Mason wanted to work with Ophuls. The Briton had another reason as well: his popularity which had lately spread to America was based on portrayals of Heathcliff-styled characters who were handsome and romantic, but cruelly domineering. Like many typecast actors, Mason eagerly accepted a wholly sympathetic part.
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