The Caretakers
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The Caretakers is a 1963 United Artists drama motion picture starring Robert Stack and Polly Bergen. Others in the cast include Diane McBain, Joan Crawford, Janis Paige, Constance Ford, Herbert Marshall, Barbara Barrie, Ellen Corby, and Robert Vaughn.
Directed and produced by Hall Bartlett, and co-produced by Jerry Paris, the script was adapted by Henry F. Greenberg from a story by Hall Bartlett and Jerry Paris based on the 1959 novel The Caretakers by Dariel Telfer. Original music was composed by Elmer Bernstein.
The Caretakers received an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Lucien Ballard). It also received Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Motion Picture Actress - Drama (Polly Bergen) and Best Motion Picture Director (Hall Bartlett).
U.S. release: August 21, 1963
97 mins.; English; black-and-white
[edit] Synopsis
The setting is a large state mental hospital in the USA. The story deals with the problems of the women patients in the Borderline Ward and the conflict between the staff over the proper care and treatment of mental illness.
The movie begins as Lorna Melford (played by Bergen) has a mental breakdown inside a crowded movie theater and wanders in front of the screen as she rants and raves. An ambulance takes her to the mental hospital, where she comes under the care of Dr. Donovan MacLeod (played by Stack).
Dr. MacLeod is a young, optimistic psychiatrist who is new to the hospital. He is trying a modern, more progressive and humane method of treating and curing the patients called "Experiment Borderline." They are treated kindly and given group therapy to explore their emotional disorders and phobias. He also wants to start an outpatient program and to allow the patients more freedom to walk about.
His method of treatment, with no violence or punishment, is met with a great deal of resistance from the resentful, unyielding and self-righteous head nurse, Lucretia Terry (played by Crawford), who has been relegated more authority by the head of the hospital, Dr. Jubal Harrington (played by Marshall). Nurse Terry believes in all the old methods, such as keeping patients locked up, giving them healthy doses of shock treatment and using force to subdue and control them, and stands in adamant opposition to everything Dr. MacLeod is trying to do.
In one scene, she says, "I expect every nurse on my floor to be trained expertly in judo!" She proves her own prowess during a judo class when she flips and tosses adversaries to the ground with seemingly little effort.
As the staff have their battle of wills, with Nurse Terry and her ally, the gruff, stern Nurse Bracken (played by Ford), doing everything they can think of to prevent Dr. MacLeod from introducing his modern methods of treatment, the patients are caught in the middle as they cope with the conditions of the ward.
Besides Lorna, who screams, shouts and has hysterics, the other woeful women on the ward include a very loose and mouthy former prostitute, Marion (played by Paige); a silent, destructive pyromaniac, Edna (played by Barrie), who has not uttered a word in seven years; and a crazy old school teacher, Irene (played by Corby).
[edit] Trivia
- The Caretakers is reminiscent of the 20th Century Fox movie The Snake Pit (1948) starring Olivia de Havilland, which explored the subject of insanity and mental hospitals.
- Co-writer/co-producer Jerry Paris also appeared in The Caretakers as a passerby who Lorna bumps into on the street. Paris acted as Jerry Helper on the TV sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show. He was later one of directors of TV's Happy Days.
- Crawford was acknowledged for allowing the scenes with veteran actor Herbert Marshall, an old Hollywood friend who was ill, to be shot first so he could be finished for the day.
- Pepsi-Cola product placements include a scene at the hospital picnic, which has a wagon dispensing the soft drink. Crawford was on the Board of Directors of PepsiCo.
