Shock Corridor (1963)

Shock Corridor (UR) - Review

"BZZZZZT"

As always director Samuel Fuller was way ahead of the curve with this one.  It predates the film adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest by almost a decade.  Its the story of a journalist who decides to go undercover at a mental hospital to get to the bottom of a murder that was committed there.  Johnny is his name and he succeeds in getting himself committed by convincing the psychiatrists that he is sexually deviant and incestuously in love with his "sister" who in reality is just his stripper girlfriend.  She's afraid that being among all those lunatics will rub off on Johnny, and so it does to great shock value and melodramatic effect.  Old fashioned acting and cornball antics aplenty here, patients who are mad as hatters and speaking in tongues )all very taboo subjects in the early 60s I'm sure).  It's the undertone, the implied horrors and the grim mood that Fuller captures here effectively.  When one inmate (who thinks he is a Civil War Rebel) breaks through his mental fugue and starts to spill the beans on the murder we see his mind open and his secrets about being a POW and tortured in the Korean War is exceptionally chilling/captivating (impressive with such an over the top performance and role).  This is Fuller at his pulp crime best and for its time it must have indeed been shocking to have a film be so frank about race and the treatment of the mentally ill, even if its used for over dramatic purposes.  Schlocky need not always have such bad connotations.

6.5 Loony Bins out of 10 (GOOD)