Cage of Gold

Jean Simmons - Judith
David Farrar - Bill Brennan
James Donald - Dr Alan Kearn
Harcourt Williams - Dr Kearn snr
Gladys Henson - Nanny
Herbert Lom - Rahman
Gregoire Aslan - Duport
Madeleine Lebeau - Madeleine
Maria Mauban - Antionette
Bernard Lee - Insp. Gray

Cage of Gold is a modestly melodramatic story directed by Dearden, who had a reputation for being the most adept of Ealing film-makers in constructing something showy out of unpromising material. It provided a vehicle for Jean Simmons, playing a young artist infatuated by a caddish ex-RAF officer (David Farrar) who makes her pregnant and then marries her so that he can get her money. When he learns that she has none, he disappears to continue philandering in Paris. His passport is used by a smuggler whose plane crashes and, thinking he is dead, the girl marries a steadfast doctor (James Donald) who is prepared to bring up the child. Two years later her first husband turns up in London having left his French mistress, and threatens to blackmail the couple. He is shot, and both of them confess to having done it, but the real killer is the French girl, who has followed him to London.

The film ends with the doctor and his wife continuing in socially worthy setting of Battersea where he is a National Health Service practitioner, having scorned the possibilities of a career in Harley Street. Cage of Gold is the name of the French night-club where Farrar’s girl friend is a cabaret singer, but it could also be said to symbolise the money trap, and the suggestion that wealth cannot buy happiness.
Extract© George Perry: Forever Ealing.