https://theasc.com/articles/caught-a-lost-noir-classic

Excellent, highly detailed look at a film that still is somewhat overlooked (though I note 72 user reviews for it at IMDB) and has drawn sharply divided opinion from viewers.

Of all those reviews, it seems that Chuck Bowen's (from SLANT) does the best job of getting to the root of a film that attempts to encompass deep-seated gender impulses as it also skewers the decadent, destructive foibles of what we might still call "the ruling class."

https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/caught/

It's easier to relate to the narrative flow in Ophuls' other noir THE RECKLESS MOMENT due to the almost-too-seamless meshing of the lead character arcs, and the ironic pathos of the denouement both embodies and transcends the contrivances within the action (the unlikely nobility of Mason's character permitting all of the plot elements to spare Joan Bennett and wrap up in a way that shields her--and her oblivious family--from what appears to be certain disaster).

CAUGHT creates a more problematic muddle for Barbara Bel Geddes' character, a situation that is much more akin to real life than the breathless goings-on in THE RECKLESS MOMENT. And her confrontation with masculinity is filled with oscillating contrasts of gender manipulation that are confounding due to their cul-de-sac nature. She has no overarching, outside-herself motivation to take hold of the action--she has no daughter to rescue. And the performance of Robert Ryan is so on-target in its depiction of the mental unbalance that simmers inside of obsessive, egregious American ambition that it takes up so much space (literally!) in the film that it tends to diminish the actions taken by Bel Geddes to regain (and reinvent) her own sense of agency. What her character goes through is too close to what happens in real life to make for a comfortable viewing experience.

Few homme fatal characters in noir have such pronounced, self-contained self-destructive tendencies. Not quite a true psychopath (think Joseph Cotten in SHADOW OF A DOUBT), Smith Ohlrig doesn't grade out at a max score for "homme fatal" because his evil is mitigated by the psycho-physical damage he imposes on himself, but it is Ryan's most nuanced such performance. (George E. Turner provides us with some of the tricks Ryan employed in key scenes: these are fascinating glimpses at the craft of a masterful actor.)