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THE CARETAKERS represents what would have happened to THE SNAKE PIT if it hadn't been based on a semi-autobiographical novel and photographed with the accent on realism instead of Hollywood glamor. Every bad cliché imaginable is present in THE CARETAKERS' script, and there are vague reminders that stand out as the plot situations seem taken from the outline of the Anatole Litvak movie.Here it's ROBERT STACK as the decent doctor (instead of Leo Genn) struggling to get his mental hospital on the right track instead of sticking to the old methods. His adversary is a rigid nurse (JOAN CRAWFORD) who wants nothing to do with his new ideas. She's given moral support by the equally hard nurse (CONSTANCE FORD instead of Helen Craig in 'The Snake Pit'), who is hell on wheels as the opposition for Stack.POLLY BERGEN is the unstable housewife (instead of Olivia de Havilland), glamorized with every hair in place--as are most of the other inmates--and fluttering her false eyelashes as she recounts the troubled past that brought her to the hospital. It's hard to tell whether she's disturbed enough to be placed in the ward she's in because most of the time she makes more sense than the others.All of the women have wardrobes straight from a studio dressmaker and give no indication that they're in anything but a dressed down rest home for the weary. JANIS PAIGE hangs onto her glamor as a real nutcase who has occasional phony outbursts of distress where her mascara runs.BARBARA BARRIE is the film's token version of Betsy Blair (the mute girl from 'The Snake Pit'), unable to let people get close to her and providing the heroine (Polly Bergen) with a chance to break through to her silence and redeem herself in the eyes of doctor Stack who knows Bergen is getting well when Barrie is willing to put aside a flaming torch and embrace her.None of the outlined plot devices have any basis in reality. It's all a very shrill showcase for actresses who want us to believe in their melodramatic situation but are continually hampered by a cliché-ridden script and banal direction from Hall Bartlett.Trivia note: Herbert Marshall looks quite ill and had to film all his scenes in the afternoon when he was feeling up to the demands of acting.Summing up: Robert Stack is not well served by his doctor role here but would have better films in his future.
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