Caught is a near masterpiece in the genre of dark melodrama that expressed the quality of domestic American life in the late forties. While it touches on familiar Ophulsian love themes, for the most part it focuses on the diseased ambitions and social-climbing illusions in postwar American society. In its attention to socio-psychological detail, Caught reveals the eye of an astute European observer. Barbara Bel Geddes plays a charm school graduate caught between her psychotic millionaire husband (Robert Ryan in a portrayal patterned on Howard Hughes) and a struggling young ghetto doctor (James Mason). Lee Garmes's camerawork is Wellesian (which was in turn Germanic) in its unusual angles, deep focus, and expressive lighting.