Caught

Leonora Eames marries Smith Ohlrig hoping to secure wealth. The union is not based on love, and a psychiatrist warns that it could ruin both of them. She remains unaware of the volatility she is stepping into.

Soon after the wedding, Ohlrig isolates Leonora and berates her with furious jealousy. Franzi Kartos participates in the abuse, reinforcing control over her. The relationship becomes a coercive arrangement rather than a romance.

When Ohlrig tells her to take a vacation, Leonora resolves she will leave and seek work. He has a psychosomatic heart attack after she departs the room, which he suppresses with a pill. The episode highlights how his illness serves as leverage over her.

Penniless, Leonora leaves Ohlrig and finds work with Dr. Hoffman and Dr. Quinada in a poor neighborhood. Under their mentorship, she learns to do her job well and begins to rebuild her independence.

Ohlrig visits her apartment promising a fresh start and the longed-for honeymoon. The next morning at a Long Island house, she learns the trip is for business, revealing his true motives.

Seeing through him, she returns to work at the doctors' office and ends the reconciliation. She recommits to her career and independence.

Leonora suspects she may be pregnant from the one-night reconciliation. Hoffman promises not to tell Quinada, though he believes Quinada would understand given the circumstances.

Leonora and Quinada share a wonderful evening and he proposes. She says she wants to marry him but needs to settle something first, then disappears and tells her landlady she is moving to Long Island.

Quinada discovers that Leonora is already married to Ohlrig and learns that she is pregnant. He urges her to marry him but warns that Ohlrig is dangerous and could ruin the child.

Ohlrig confronts them, questions the paternity of the baby, and uses the child to force Leonora to stay. He admits he never loved her and hates himself for marrying her.

Excerpts from gossip columns trace the pregnancy and rumors of mistreatment from April to October. Kartos quits, preferring to return to service as a head waiter.

Ohlrig suffers an angina attack; Leonora initially refuses to help, fearing she caused it. Quinada arrives with medical staff as the situation escalates.

In the ambulance to the hospital, Quinada reassures Leonora that Ohlrig is in good health. Dr. Hoffman delivers the baby, which is premature and dies; Leonora survives, and the crisis leaves Ohlrig stripped of his leverage.

A nurse brings Leonora's mink coat to the room; Dr. Hoffman hints that, if his diagnosis is correct, Leonora will not want it. The moment underscores a shift toward freedom from Ohlrig's control.

With the crisis behind her, Leonora asserts her independence from Ohlrig's dominance and begins rebuilding her life on her own terms.