User Reviews

The Glass Cage is a very Noir-ish styled Mystery with some great experimental cinematography. The tale begins at night in a Los Angeles Bunker Hill neighborhood. At a low rent dump called The Melvin, a "housekeeping apartments" converted Victorian apartment house. An attempted break in is abruptly thwarted. We see a hand break open a screen door we see a revolver in extreme close up. A muzzle flash. A man is shot. He tumbles doing a back flip down a flight of stairs breaks through the railing on a landing and falls vertically head first to the concrete pavement two stories below. A stream of blood flows quickly from his corpse towards a sewer drain.

A crowd gathers and the LAPD arrives. A meat wagon is called in and a corpse is removed. In a macabre touch one of the coroners men, after they load the dead man on a wheeled gurney, sings dirge like "merrily we roll a long, roll a long, roll a long" as they glide off into the darkness.

Two detectives are assigned to the case Lt. Max Westman (Hoyt), the by the book veteran and Sgt, Jeff Bradley (Keljan). The dead man turns out to be a local business man and not a burglar as suspected. The beautiful young woman Ellen (Sax) who shot him tells a story that conflicts with the facts, but Jeff is smitten by Ellen who comes off as sweet and demure and he believes her while Max stays aloof and by the book. Sax, later known as Arlene Martel, was a staple of 50s-60s TV.

Ellen claims the intruder was in the kitchen when she shot him. When contradicted with the facts by Max she claims she really doesn't remember. When asked where she got the gun she says that her sister Ruth gave it to her for protection that same night. When questioned about any other relatives she says that her father is living in Arizona, Asked what he does for a living she says that he's an evangelist in a tone of voice that one would use to say he's a card carrying communist. Ellen is a troubled woman with serious daddy issues.

King Moody who will remind you a bit of Timothy Carey is Tox, a kooky troubled beatnik artist who lives across the alley from Ellen. The police question Tox because he witnessed the events after the gunshot. Tox knows the score with Ellen Jeff doesn't.

Jeff begins to get seriously involved with Ellen and Tox ever surveillant of the goings on in Ellen's apartment starts to have issues with Jeff moving in on his"good thing". He drops over later that day to "borrow a cup of sugar", but it isn't the granular kind that he's looking for.

The rape of Ellen triggers a flashback/nightmare sequence where she is dressed in her prom gown carrying a bouquet and running through crowds of people away from an ominous man who walks with a cane. This sequence features experimental cinematography combined with Noir stylistics part of the chase sequence features the The Bradley Building an iconic location for Classic Noir.

I was pleasantly surprised, the film was produced by Futuramic Productions whose only other efforts was Squad Car (1960) and Come Spy with Me (1967). Its Available on DVD from Sinister Cinema, it could use a full restoration 7/10

Barely released/obscure films often get a "I feel sorry for it" reaction. As latter-day fans (just check the small sampling in IMDb) stretch their standards in order to praise them. Count me out: there are many, many high quality, successful somewhat similar movies of this period, including indies, that earned recognition without requiring special pleading (see: "David and Lisa", "Blast of Silence", William Castle's famous hit "Homicidal", Fuller's "Shock Corridor", Dennis Hopper in Curtis Harrington's "Night Tide" and of course the cult of cults "Carnival of Souls". And don't forget true classics imported from France: "La Jetee" and "Sundays and Cybele".

I watched "The Glass Cage" to see Arlene Martel -her acting is exemplary, but she's stuck in a lousy film. Its central police investigation is deadly dull and clashes with the sudden outbursts of hyped-up style including the opening murder, the nightmare sequence, the freeze-frame Elisha Cook scene and the crazy car chase and Polar Bear finale.

Leading man Robert Kelljan (later a very fine B movie director -I think I saw all his work) ruined the film for me. He's a dead ringer for character actor Don Gordon, but has a poor voice and none of Gordon's talent. He doesn't deserve a cameo let alone trying to carry an entire movie. Ditto the nutty artist living across the way with his hammy, annoying performance. He gets to do an Orson Welles routine breaking up the place, one of many, many ripoffs here from Welles' work (the odd camera angles especially at the beginning; Cook's Everett Sloane walking with cane(s) from "Lady from Shanghai", etc.).

The major flaw is how transparent it was early on that the second sister didn't exist (or in this case was dead), as telegraphed by her late entrance into the action after everyone talks about her. And pulling punches by suggesting but then canceling out the obvious Father/Daughrer incest angle was a big mistake -it certainly would have given the movie a commercial hook.