Lady in a Cage

In the early 60's Hollywood churned out films that would fall under the title of "hag-horror" or older women-in-peril films. The genre's explosion began with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? and most of those films starred the aged and heavy handed Joan Crawford (Straight Jacket). Lady in a Cage was the lesser known of the genre but the social commentary that it held then, still holds an impact now. The violence and mean-spirited villian's were an an exaggeration of what society could be like in a world where people turn a blind eye to blatant crimes of violence in broad daylight.

The old woman in peril (Olivia DeHavilland) viciously battles mental abuse and physical attacks from a Preaching Wino, a Aged Prostitute and three grimy beatnik hoodlums (one of them being a young and handsome James Caan) while imprisoned in her own house, in an elevator (the cage) on a hot summer afternoon. Films like these spawned into a more bizarre type of films called "roughies" in which the damsel in distress became a young beauty instead of easy targeted elderly.  Notable "Roughies" were Bad Girls go to Hell and Defilers which pushed sex and violence towards women even further. 9 out of 10