The Cinematheque

New Restoration

“A masterpiece … Leonora’s movement is conveyed with the sort of virtuosity that made Ophüls an idol for generations of lens-geek directors … It packs a wallop.”

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, The AV Club

The tracking, gliding camera of Max Ophüls dovetails neatly with noir’s modus operandi: it sees through everything. In Caught, a post-Gaslight film about the veneer of married society, there’s plenty of obstruction to peer through. Leonora Ames (Barbara Bel Geddes) is scraping by to pay her way through charm school; Smith Ohlrig (Robert Ryan), ​“the Wall in Wall Street,” picks her up one night on a pier across from his yacht. What follows, after the tabloid headlines and magazine dreams, is a stunning journey through the locked corridors of Leonora’s life, as she pitches between Smith’s hollow fortress on Long Island and the extramarital opportunities available to her in New York’s Lower East Side. Caught​’s elegant structure vaults forward through time, tracking Leonora in relation to a world of shadowy business, violent impulses, and psychological extremity. James Mason plays a crucial supporting role. This restoration was a highlight of Il Cinema Ritrovato 2022.

“Brilliant … Ophüls’s use of long takes, deep focus, looming angles, noir lighting, and overlapping dialogue equals that of Welles.”

J. Hoberman, The New York Times

“A magnetic noir with a very personal visual style … A stylistic miracle.”

Paola Cristalli, Il Cinema Ritrovato