Captive Women (1952)

• Director
  • Stuart Gilmore
• Writers
  • Jack Pollexfen
  • Aubrey Wisberg
• Stars
  • Robert Clarke
  • Margaret Field
  • Gloria Saunders

  Assembled by the same production team responsible for the science fiction mini-classic The Man From Planet X, Captive Women is a mixed-bag post-apocalyptic melodrama. After a windy opening lecture about the dangers of atomic power, the story moves ahead to the year 3000. New York City is now a radioactive, bombed-out shell, populated by three groups: the "Norms," the "Mutes," and the "Uprivers." The Norms are cavedwellers, the Uprivers a barbarous people who demonstrate lawlessness and territorial aggression and live in a tunnel beneath the Hudson River, and the Mutes hideously disfigured yet peaceloving surface dwellers. The groups engage in many violent skirmishes, until the Uprivers are wiped out by a massive flood. Now, the only hope for mankind's future is the romance between Mute-man Riddon (Ron Randell) and Norm-woman Ruth (Margaret Field, the mother of actress Sally Field). Production values are better than one might expect, though the film suffers from rather shoddy special effects. Captive Women was released in England as 3000 AD.