Main Cast: Robert Stack, Polly Bergen, Joan Crawford, Janis Paige, Diane McBain
Release Year: 1963
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
Plot
A "bad movie" with a fervent fan following, The Caretakers is set in a bleak mental institution. Joan Crawford plays the hard-bitten head nurse (we first see her taking a karate lesson!) who is dead set against the progressive theories of new doctor Robert Stack. After a few minutes' exposure to the inmates, half the audience has sided with Crawford. The most disturbed individual in the place is Polly Bergen, who never speaks when screaming will do. But thanks to the compassionate treatment of Dr. Stack, it is Bergen who saves the day by preventing fellow inmate Barbara Barrie from burning the institution to the ground. Virtually every scene in The Caretakers is a gem of glorious excess, including the obligatory shock-treatment vignette. The film strives to avoid subtlety, but its fans wouldn't have it any other way. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Caretakers is high camp and therefore a field day for those who prefer their acting performances so far over the top as to be in actual orbit. It is also, consequently, a horrible pain for those who prefer subtlety in acting, or who object to exploiting the subject of the mentally ill. Ironically, it seems that the creators of Caretakers actually were rather well meaning; their intention was to create a film that took a serious look at the problems of mental and emotional dysfunction. That intention was betrayed by their utter ineptness in the writing and directing of Caretakers, with the result this glorious excursion into the ludicrous. Although the main drawing card for many will be Joan Crawford -- who does not disappoint, down to and including her judo classes for her nurses -- the true acting "honors" actually go tom Polly Bergen, whose performance is shamelessly out of control; the opening breakdown at the movie theatre must be seen to be believed. Janis Paige also steals a number of scenes as a sharp-tongued man-hater, and Constance Ford gets in her own moments here and there. Crawford's role is much too small, but she commands attention in that peculiar later style of hers. And one person, namely Barbara Barrie, actually manages to turn in a good, nuanced performance in the midst of the high-jinx. Lucien Ballard's evocative cinematography likewise has true dramatic quality, which also has the unintended effect of making the ludicrous scene-chewers looks that much more ridiculous. Those in the right frame of mind should seek out Caretakers for a frightfully good time. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Claudio Guzman - Art Director, Rolland M. Brooks - Art Director, Hall Bartlett - Director, William B. Murphy - Editor, Elmer Bernstein - Composer (Music Score), Lucien Ballard - Cinematographer, Hall Bartlett - Producer, Frank A. Tuttle - Set Designer, Jerry Paris - Screen Story, Hall Bartlett - Screenwriter, Henry Greenberg - Screenwriter, Dariel Telfer - Book Author
Young, optimistic psychiatrist Dr. Donovan MacLeod (Stack) wants to prove his theory that mental patients can benefit from group therapy. His method of treatment, with no violence or punishment, is met with a great deal of resistance from unyielding and self-righteous head nurse, Lucretia Terry (Crawford) who believes in traditional methods such as strait-jackets and padded cells for treating the mentally ill. The head of the hospital Dr. Harrington (Herbert Marshall) is weak-willed, and nurse Bracken, Terry's assistant, (Constance Ford) supports her superior's stand. After much trial and error and the harrowing near-rape of a patient, MacLeod's ideas prevail in spite of the opposition and meet some success. Patients include a distraught mother Lorna Medford (Polly Bergen); a former prostitute, Marion (Janis Paige); a pyromaniac, Edna (Barbara Barrie); and a former schoolteacher, Irene (Ellen Corby). Others in the cast include Virginia Munshin as Ruth, Diane McBain as Alison, Sharon Hugueny as Connie, Susan Oliver as Cathy, Ana St. Clair as Ana, Robert Vaughn as Jim Melford, and Van Williams as Dr. Larry Denning.
Production notes
Co-writer/co-producer Jerry Paris also appears in The Caretakers as a passerby into whom Lorna bumps on the street.
Joan Crawford 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.
Joan Crawford was on the board of directors of Pepsico and Pepsi-Cola product placements include a scene at the hospital picnic, which features a wagon dispensing the soft drink.
Reception
Variety commented, "Miss Crawford doesn't so much play her handful of scenes as she dresses for them, looking as if she were en route to a Pepsi board meeting."
Bosley Crowther noted in the New York Times, "Altogether, this woman's melodrama is shallow, showy, and cheap - a badly commercial exploitation of very sensitive material."[1]
