The Caretakers
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| The Caretakers | |
|---|---|
 Promotional movie poster for the film |
|
| Directed by | Hall Bartlett |
| Produced by | Hall Bartlett |
| Written by | Hall Bartlett Jerry Paris |
| Starring | Robert Stack Polly Bergen Joan Crawford Janis Paige Diane McBain Van Williams Constance Ford Ana St. Clair Susan Oliver Robert Vaughn |
| Music by | Elmer Bernstein |
| Cinematography | Lucien Ballard |
| Editing by | William B. Murphy |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
| Release date(s) |  August 21, 1963 March 20, 1964 May 24, 1965 August 27 |
| Running time | 97 min. |
| Country | U.S.A. |
| Language | English |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Caretakers is a 1963 United Artists drama motion picture.
Contents |
[edit] Opening credits cast
- UNITED ARTISTS an MGM company
- Robert Stack
- Polly Bergen
- Diane McBain
- Joan Crawford as "Lucretia"
- in Hall Bartlett's production
- THE CARETAKERS
- with Janis Paige as Marion
- also starring Van Williams | Constance Ford
- Sharon Hugueny
- guest star | Ana St. Clair | courtesy of DeMedici Productions of Argentina
- Robert Vaughn
- Susan Oliver
[edit] Closing credits
- "We are the caretakers of their hope—their future"
a cameo-shaped clip of a scene featuring a closeup of each cast member is displayed in the following order:
- Virginia Munshin-------Ruth
- Ellen Corby--------------Irene
- Barbara Barrie---------Edna
- Herbert Marshall------Dr. Harrington
- Sharon Hugueny-------Connie
- Robert Vaughn---------Jim Melford
- Susan Oliver------------Cathy
- Ana St. Clair------------Ana
- Constance Ford-------Nurse Bracken
- Van Williams-----------Dr. Larry Denning
- Diane McBain----------Alison
- Janis Paige-------------Marion
- Joan Crawford---------Lucretia Terry
- Polly Bergen-----------Lorna Melford
- Robert Stack----------Dr. Donovan MacLeod
- A Hall Bartlett production released thru United Artists
[edit] Creative personnel, awards, nominations and other data
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).
97 minutes; English-language; black-and-white—screen aspect ratio 1.66:1
[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 (Polly 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 (Robert 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 (Joan Crawford), who has been relegated more authority by the weak-willed head of the hospital, Dr. Jubal Harrington (Herbert Marshall). Nurse Terry believes in all the old methods, such as keeping patients locked up, giving them severe 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 poises for a battle of wills, with Nurse Terry and her ally, the gruff, stern Nurse Bracken (Constance Ford), doing everything they can 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 hysterical outbursts, the other woeful female patients in the ward include a loudmouthed, uninhibited former prostitute, Marion (Janis Paige); a silent, destructive pyromaniac, Edna (Barbara Barrie), who has not uttered a word in seven years; and an elderly, seemingly sensible, but mentally unstable, former schoolteacher, Irene (Ellen Corby).
[edit] Film notes
- The passage of time between the filming of The Caretakers and its August 1963 release, can be measured through the presence of actress Virginia Munshin, who died of a cerebral hemorrhage more than a year earlier, on July 8, 1962. Playing one of the patients in this, her only film appearance, she is not listed in the opening credits, but her face is seen as the first of fifteen cameo closeups of cast members shown in the reverse-order-of-importance end credits.
- 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 appears in The Caretakers as a passerby into whom Lorna bumps on the street. He is best known for portraying Jerry Helper on the TV sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show. Later, he was one of the directors of TV's Happy Days.
- A number of biographical books and articles about Joan Crawford have acknowledged that she arranged for each day's scenes with veteran actor Herbert Marshall, an old friend who was in frail health, to be shot first, thus allowing him to finish his work early in the day.
- Pepsi-Cola product placements include a scene at the hospital picnic, which features a wagon dispensing the soft drink. Joan Crawford was on the board of directors of Pepsico, a position acquired after the death of her husband, Alfred Steele.
- The Caretakers is an alternate view of man's existence, in the context of the 1999 motion picture The Matrix. This theory proposes that the ultimate fate of mankind is to subject ourselves to living in a virtual reality, similar to that in The Matrix. Humans in physical form are grown in life-supporting sacs as a result of a destroyed world caused by numerous nuclear wars. Humans rely on machines to survive in a world unfit for life. Thus, they are "the caretakers"—humans volunteered to live in a world of virtual reality in order to continue life.
