It seems as though every decade puts out another film on mental illness and the treatment thereof. In the Thirties it was Private Worlds, the Forties gave us The Snake Pit, the Fifties the Cobweb, and finally in the Sixties The Caretakers. In the following decade it was One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. You can see a bit of that and the other films in The Caretakers.
Joan Crawford plays the head nurse in the hospital who is a great believer in discipline in the ward. She has an assistant a regular nurse Ratched in training in Constance Ford. She's got no use for the new fangled ideas that Robert Stack is bringing to the hospital, most prominent among them group therapy. In fact my favorite scene is Crawford giving judo lessons to her nurses, the better to protect themselves from some patients who might turn on them in an instant.
Both Crawford and Stack battle for the soul and mind of the hospital head Herbert Marshall who is old and tired and basically listens to whomever talks to him last.
The best acting is done by the women in the group which consists of such varied types as Polly Bergen, Janis Paige, Diane McBain, Sharon Hugenny, Virginia Munshin, Barbara Barrie, Ellen Corby, and Ana St. Clair. The film is almost a combination of The Women and Caged only set in a mental hospital ward for women instead of a prison. Each one of these actresses presents a sharply delineated character.
Joan who after Baby Jane got nothing but horror/terror films was lucky to get this part, the better for her fans to remember her in something other than trash in the Sixties. Stack is his usual professional self who makes psychiatry look like a noble calling. The two have some interesting scenes together as professional rivals who see the treatment of the mentally ill from different perspectives.
But the real heart of this film is the patients. Above all Polly Bergen is one you will remember best from The Caretakers.
Joan Crawford plays the head nurse in the hospital who is a great believer in discipline in the ward. She has an assistant a regular nurse Ratched in training in Constance Ford. She's got no use for the new fangled ideas that Robert Stack is bringing to the hospital, most prominent among them group therapy. In fact my favorite scene is Crawford giving judo lessons to her nurses, the better to protect themselves from some patients who might turn on them in an instant.
Both Crawford and Stack battle for the soul and mind of the hospital head Herbert Marshall who is old and tired and basically listens to whomever talks to him last.
The best acting is done by the women in the group which consists of such varied types as Polly Bergen, Janis Paige, Diane McBain, Sharon Hugenny, Virginia Munshin, Barbara Barrie, Ellen Corby, and Ana St. Clair. The film is almost a combination of The Women and Caged only set in a mental hospital ward for women instead of a prison. Each one of these actresses presents a sharply delineated character.
Joan who after Baby Jane got nothing but horror/terror films was lucky to get this part, the better for her fans to remember her in something other than trash in the Sixties. Stack is his usual professional self who makes psychiatry look like a noble calling. The two have some interesting scenes together as professional rivals who see the treatment of the mentally ill from different perspectives.
But the real heart of this film is the patients. Above all Polly Bergen is one you will remember best from The Caretakers.