The Caretakers (1963)

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Director:

Hall Bartlett

Writers:

Dariel Telfer (novel)
Hall Bartlett (story) ...

Release Date:

21 August 1963 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Now the screen tells what makes a woman - and what breaks her!

Plot:

This movie chronicles the trials of the mentally ill and their care-givers in an over-crowded ward of a hospital...

Plot Keywords:

Patient | Hospital | Nurse | Medical Doctor | Caregiver

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 4 nominations

Cast

Robert Stack	...	Dr. Donovan MacLeod
Polly Bergen	...	Lorna Melford
Diane McBain	...	Alison Horne
Joan Crawford	...	Lucretia Terry, R.N.
Janis Paige	...	Marion
Van Williams	...	Dr. Larry Denning
Constance Ford	...	Nurse Bracken
Sharon Hugueny	...	Connie
Herbert Marshall	...	Dr. Jubal Harrington
Barbara Barrie	...	Edna
Ellen Corby	...	Irene
Ana María Lynch	...	Ana (as Ana St. Clair)
Robert Vaughn	...	Jim Melford
Susan Oliver	...	Nurse Cathy Clark
Virginia Munshin	...	Ruth

Also Known As:

Borderlines (UK)

Runtime:

97 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

West Germany:16 | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Company:

Hall Bartlett Productions

Trivia:

From The Washington Post, May 22, 1963: "So impressed were Senators Lister Hill and Thomas Kuchel with 'The Caretakers,' a film on mental health, that they arranged a showing for senators and their staffs this afternoon in the New Senate Office building. The extra attraction: a post-screening reception in honor of stars Joan Crawford and Robert Stack, writer Henry F. Greenburg and producer Hal Bartlett."

Goofs:

Continuity: As Lorna runs into the hospital, there's nothing outside the door. But the shot from inside shows a small wall just outside the door which she would have had to jump over or go around to enter.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Joan Crawford: The Ultimate Movie Star (2002) (TV)

Guilty Pleasure, also Joan Crawford's most characteristic performance

"The Caretakers" is going to be one of those movies that I end up watching 900 times. I can already tell. It is weird and tacky and low-budget and the emotional distance between the characters and the viewer is very short, up-close. (The musical score is the only thing in the movie that makes the intended impression. It should have received an Oscar nomination.) It is the kind of movie that I will watch when I am enjoying being tucked away in my room at 2:00 in the morning. It is sort of an accident that the movie is as entertaining as it is... Then there's Joan, who is nobody's accident, if not her own. I think her acting reached a new peak of rigid solemnity here, in 1963. The next year, she gave her best performance since "Flamingo Road" (1949) as a masochistic axe-murderess in "Straight Jacket". She was much more believable and compelling as an axe-murderess than as a nurse! Hmmmmm..... Maybe because she took her assignment as a nurse in a psychiatric ward a lot more seriously than the role of Lucy Harbin. Her enunciation of dialogue is thick and syrupy, trying to make her line-readings important. And sometimes her false teeth rattle a little and get in her way. "ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! FIVE! I expect every nurse on my floor to be trained expertly in judo!" You cannot believe you are actually watching Joan Crawford purposefully trip a fat lesbian and throw her onto the mat. But she does it, anyway, and she means it, too. Therein lies her essential quality. Fighting for the preservation of her movie-star image, she retained an intimate relationship with the camera. Yet, at the same time, in her misplaced vigor, her narrow focus, she had no idea how she came across. And the result is that she defaults to thinking that everyone is as delusional and out of touch as she is, the difference between how she thinks she is coming across and how we see her. She is unwilling, perhaps unable, to let go of her super controlled, (hilariously) misconceived persona. She never lightens up. The "caretakers" resemble mental patients as accurately as the actual patients do. And the patients are horrible in depicting mental illness. But that just gets the viewer off the hook and he can relax and enjoy. Polly Bergen comes off best/worst. Her scene in the movie theater is ridiculous. And, though she is marginally likeable, Ms. Bergen is not a very good actress. I am wondering if she won some kind of movie star lottery and her prize was starring in the next "Joan Crawford movie". Though, to her credit, she has the worst lines in the movie. "PIG! PIG! PIG! PIG! PIG!", "You're all dirty women! DIRTY! DIRTY!" "You're the filth of the world! You prostitute! You WHORE!!!" Why is she saying this? It makes no sense. The script is mostly exploitive and cheap. Nobody really seems like a mental patient in this movie, they are mostly just abrasive. Janis Paige and the pretty blond nurse are the only two main actors who do not embarrass themselves. Though Janis has a pretty broad character to essay, I thought she was pretty convincing in her anger, especially during her last speech. Barbara Barrie is my favorite, but she only speaks a few words in the whole movie. Ms. Barrie was the only character who really seemed like she might have had a mental problem. I thought she was sweet. The rest just seemed angry. But none of this is why I enjoy "The Caretakers"... Give me Joan. Give me the naive, unashamed exhibition of her narcissistic personality disorder every day of the week. And her fancy wardrobe changes. And the way every word she says knocks you out of your seat. Every word. Joan fights for each word to receive equal importance. That's the way she delivers her lines. And she has the most overactive mouth imaginable. Her mouth along with her two eyebrows represent some unforgettably brutal triangle. Every bad acting habit she developed over the years, she gets across in her five scenes here. I think the special "more gauze, Goddamnit!" ethereal lighting she received in this movie imbued her acting with a ferocious hyperawareness. She gives a ridiculous performance in this small movie, yet she has a startling presence. I worship her! She is so easy to read, the way she gets so excited to be in a movie! Even a movie as inane as "The Caretakers"... I can guarantee she worked out her wardrobe in this film. She should have received a credit. In the first two scenes, she wears her "crisp whites", cinched at the waist, as proof of her professional authority. The next scene, her character wears a white cocktail dress, the next scene comes another cocktail dress, this time black - both are sleeveless and she gets to wear pearls. The second dress gets the upper hand, however, because she holds a cocktail, to go with the dress, closely to her breastplate and she places an iron grip on poor, sickly Herbert Marshall's shoulder. The drink is just another glorified prop, however, because she nevers takes a drink. I felt sorry for Mr. Marshall, he seemed not to be doing well. It had to be close to his last film. I forgot what she wore for her last scene, but she tells Robert Stack that she wishes to speak to him, "man to man"... Oh, my. Joan does not need a penis in this film. She has a 30 pound silver brillo pad perched on her head. Joan is without flaws.