"Shock Corridor" (1963) Dir: Sam Fuller
Posterity has treated this movie well. It has a place in the National Film Registry and has been treated to a Criterion Collection DVD reissue - both are a kind of cultural Seal of Approval, commending "Shock Corridor" as a work that delivers beyond the standards of its own medium. Sam Fuller's drama, set in a mental health ward, addresses themes like the Cold War, the relative nature of sanity versus insanity, and socialisation into bigotry. It is bold and brash, the lack of subtlety being its most obvious connection to the world of pulp fiction and B-Movies in which it was produced. And while its ambition is commendable, "Shock Corridor" ends up as something of a muddle.
The plot is straightforward - Johnny Barrett, a journalist, is prepared to have himself committed to a mental institution in order to interview the witnesses to a murder that occurred within the hospital. He convinces his devastated girlfriend to pose as his sister and claim he is trying to sexually harass her, and once inside he works hard to get the murderer's name from his volatile fellow patients. Along the way he becomes obsessed, as the question of "Who killed Sloane in the kitchen?" acts upon him like a mantra. Predictably, he begins to call his own sanity into question. He must continue to appear mentally unsound to the attendants and doctors, but the environment begins to wear upon him as he nears his goal.
Like the patients in the ward itself, this film has moments of great brilliance and clarity. They occur sporadically and show great control and promise, but rarely stick around too long. I had two main problems with "Shock Corridor". The first is that it seems unsure how much should be spoon-fed to the viewer and how much should be left for us to interpret. Johnny's internal monologue, featured so prominently as a narrative method, imparts mostly obvious and arbitrary information that would be far better delivered by allowing the actors the time to... well, act. When they do, the results are frequently excellent. For example the first witness, Stuart, has retreated to the personality of a Confederate officer, and the scene where he snaps out of it and very lucidly, with great emotional depth, explains to Johnny how he became disillusioned enough by Southern bigotry to defect to the Communist side while serving in Korea, is played to virtual perfection by both actors. But aside from a couple more scenes and smaller touches like this, the psychology-heavy storyline isn't delivered with as much depth as it could have been.
My second problem is more to do with the production and writing of the movie itself. The editing is plain bad, and there are numerous plot holes. Cathy's phony complaint must rank as literally the quickest Mental Sectioning ever dramatised. The use of colour montages in a black and white movie cannot be explained away as simply as Fuller tries - it smacks of vault-clearing opportunism. The scenes with the three witnesses are quite obviously the centrepieces of the film, and seem flimsily supported by what comes before and after them. Also, the scene where Johnny accidentally wanders into a room full of young women, pauses, and internally delivers the line "Nymphos!" is laughable. There's nothing wrong with bittersweet humour in a film about mental instability, as the excellent scenes with Barrett's charmingly opera-obsessed neighbour attest to, but the Nympho attack scene is more Russ Meyer than Milos Foreman. And how exactly is this research going to get Johnny a Pulitzer Prize anyway?
"Shock Corridor" is frustrating because its best scenes are genuinely great, and at points I felt like it could really accelerate towards a finale that would assure the film as something of a trailblazer. But it's uneven. Consider that Roman Polanski's nerve-wracking "Repulsion" is only two or three years younger than this film, and there is a gulf of difference between them in terms of successful delivery of what is attempted. And I do understand what the three witnesses represent in the context of the American 1960s - post-McCarthyist, post-WW2, with progressive opinions burgeoning to the fore. It is certainly a timely film, which perhaps is the main reason it appears in the Library of Congress. For all its promise and occasional brilliance, it remains a B-Picture.
Posterity has treated this movie well. It has a place in the National Film Registry and has been treated to a Criterion Collection DVD reissue - both are a kind of cultural Seal of Approval, commending "Shock Corridor" as a work that delivers beyond the standards of its own medium. Sam Fuller's drama, set in a mental health ward, addresses themes like the Cold War, the relative nature of sanity versus insanity, and socialisation into bigotry. It is bold and brash, the lack of subtlety being its most obvious connection to the world of pulp fiction and B-Movies in which it was produced. And while its ambition is commendable, "Shock Corridor" ends up as something of a muddle.
The plot is straightforward - Johnny Barrett, a journalist, is prepared to have himself committed to a mental institution in order to interview the witnesses to a murder that occurred within the hospital. He convinces his devastated girlfriend to pose as his sister and claim he is trying to sexually harass her, and once inside he works hard to get the murderer's name from his volatile fellow patients. Along the way he becomes obsessed, as the question of "Who killed Sloane in the kitchen?" acts upon him like a mantra. Predictably, he begins to call his own sanity into question. He must continue to appear mentally unsound to the attendants and doctors, but the environment begins to wear upon him as he nears his goal.
Like the patients in the ward itself, this film has moments of great brilliance and clarity. They occur sporadically and show great control and promise, but rarely stick around too long. I had two main problems with "Shock Corridor". The first is that it seems unsure how much should be spoon-fed to the viewer and how much should be left for us to interpret. Johnny's internal monologue, featured so prominently as a narrative method, imparts mostly obvious and arbitrary information that would be far better delivered by allowing the actors the time to... well, act. When they do, the results are frequently excellent. For example the first witness, Stuart, has retreated to the personality of a Confederate officer, and the scene where he snaps out of it and very lucidly, with great emotional depth, explains to Johnny how he became disillusioned enough by Southern bigotry to defect to the Communist side while serving in Korea, is played to virtual perfection by both actors. But aside from a couple more scenes and smaller touches like this, the psychology-heavy storyline isn't delivered with as much depth as it could have been.
My second problem is more to do with the production and writing of the movie itself. The editing is plain bad, and there are numerous plot holes. Cathy's phony complaint must rank as literally the quickest Mental Sectioning ever dramatised. The use of colour montages in a black and white movie cannot be explained away as simply as Fuller tries - it smacks of vault-clearing opportunism. The scenes with the three witnesses are quite obviously the centrepieces of the film, and seem flimsily supported by what comes before and after them. Also, the scene where Johnny accidentally wanders into a room full of young women, pauses, and internally delivers the line "Nymphos!" is laughable. There's nothing wrong with bittersweet humour in a film about mental instability, as the excellent scenes with Barrett's charmingly opera-obsessed neighbour attest to, but the Nympho attack scene is more Russ Meyer than Milos Foreman. And how exactly is this research going to get Johnny a Pulitzer Prize anyway?
"Shock Corridor" is frustrating because its best scenes are genuinely great, and at points I felt like it could really accelerate towards a finale that would assure the film as something of a trailblazer. But it's uneven. Consider that Roman Polanski's nerve-wracking "Repulsion" is only two or three years younger than this film, and there is a gulf of difference between them in terms of successful delivery of what is attempted. And I do understand what the three witnesses represent in the context of the American 1960s - post-McCarthyist, post-WW2, with progressive opinions burgeoning to the fore. It is certainly a timely film, which perhaps is the main reason it appears in the Library of Congress. For all its promise and occasional brilliance, it remains a B-Picture.