"Shock" (1946) and "Behind Lock Doors" (1948)

Posted by Dan in the Middle West

For those who know me from the Blackboard, it should be clear that I am partial to "B" films, the noir the better. Nothing is more satisfying than finding a title that can be enjoyed an hour. In making my selections, I decided to schedule a matinee double feature. It is a holiday weekend after all and a perfect time to celebrate the Fourth of July with two interesting trifles that are actually related as will be explained below.

One subcategory of noir genre films that seems to have escaped serious discussion since I began whiling away my hours at the Blackboard and the Danger and Despair Knitting Circle is the asylum/psychology/sanitarium based film. Numerous examples exist such as "The Dark Mirror," "Strange Illusion," and others might include Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound" or Sam Fuller's "Shock Corridor." I am not speaking of films in which the villain is clearly a psychopath, but rather of films that actually take place inside of a sanitarium or psychiatric hospital.

"Shock"was originally intended as a "B" unit programmer by 20th Century Fox Studios, but the initial audience response to the film was so positive that the studio chose to reissue the movie as an "A" despite the fact that the running time is approximately seventy minutes or so. Vincent Price had appeared in a series of important yet clearly supporting roles while under contract at Fox (He had managed to grab a lead or two while at Universal, most notably in "The Invisible Man Returns," earlier in his career). The success of this picture recommended Price to producers as a star of sufficient power to carry a film as a leading player in his own right.

***SOME PLOT SPOILERS FOLLOW BELOW***

Anabel Shaw (better known for her supporting role in "Gun Crazy") only rates fourth billing, but she is central to the plot as Janet Stewart, a woman awaiting the return of her husband, Paul Stewart (Frank Latimore), at the Belmont Arms Hotel in San Francisco. Janet is excitable and on edge. Her husband had been reported dead two years earlier, but he had survived and was held as a prisoner of war. When her reservation was misplaced and her husband fails to appear on time, Janet breaks down in tears. The helpful Belmont Arms manager (Pierre Watkin) suggests that she and her tardy husband may make use of a vacant suite in the overbooked hotel until the next afternoon when another guest is due to arrive. Exhausted, Janet nods off in the hotel suite and has a nightmare. In one of the film's best sequences, she dreams that her husband is calling for her help, but she cannot open the door which separates them. When Janet awakes, she rushes to the door and into the empty corridor searching for him.

Returning to the room, Janet overhears a quarrel in a suite opposite her balcony. Mrs. Margaret Cross has discovered her philandering husband entertaining his mistress in their apartment. When he asks her for a divorce, she agrees provided that she can expose him to as much public humiliation and scorn as possible ("no fault" divorces were not yet the norm). In the argument that follows, the husband strikes a fatal blow when he hits his wife in the skull. Janet is stunned and speechless as she witnesses the exchange in silence.

The following morning, Paul arrives more than twelve hours late as his flight had been delayed on account of inclement weather. He finds his wife in a catatonic state. When the hotel physician, Dr. Blair (Selmer Jackson), is unable to rouse her, he places a call to a noted specialist who has an apartment in the same hotel. When Dr. Richard Cross arrives, he discovers that the Stewart suite is opposite his own and he deduces that Janet witnessed his quarrel and the otherwise undetected murder of his wife. He recommends that Janet be placed under his personal care and transported from San Francisco to his private sanitarium. Conveniently, the nurse (Lynn Bari) assigned to the case is his mistress.

"Shock" was directed by Alfred Werker who is best known for "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and the police procedural noir "He Walked By Night" for which he received directorial credit despite the fact that an unbilled Anthony Mann made significant contributions to the finished film. The supporting cast is first rate: Lynn Bari, a fine actress from an era in which real women had curves in contrast to the blend of anorexia and heroin chic that passes for feminine beauty today, is well cast as Cross's scheming mistress; Frank Latimore seems surprisingly handsome and fit despite his recent internment as a prisoner of war; Reed Hadley is a police detective trying to close the file on the accidental death of Margaret Cross whose body was found in a canyon ravine near her mountain lodge and Charles Trowbridge is a consulting psychiatrist who cannot understand why Janet Stewart isn't responding to treatments at the sanitarium of her former pupil and protege, Dr. Cross.




Two years later, screenwriter Eugene Ling collaborated on another sanitarium based film noir that was even better than his script for "Shock." Oscar "Budd" Boetticher, who would achieve a reputation for his mature series of Westerns with Randolph Scott, delivered a superb "B" film that is a model of economical filmmaking and pacing in "Behind Locked Doors."A crooked politician and judge has become a fugitive from justice and a newspaper women (Lucille Bremer) believes that he is concealing himself from the law in a private sanitarium. She recruits an underemployed private detective (Richard Carlson) to pose as her clinically depressed husband in order to secure admission to the same rest home to investigate if the criminal is residing there. Once inside, Carlson is subjected to the abusive treatment at the hands of a sadistic warder, Larson (Douglas Fowley). When Doctor Porter (Thomas Browne) discovers that his newest patient is a detective, he alerts the judge and soon Carlson finds himself sharing a locked cell in the violent ward with the Champ, a demented, punch drunk boxer who comes out swinging every time he hears the sound of a bell.

The cinematography in the film is excellent and the film looks far better than its low budget would suggest. Watch for Dickie Moore as a mute resident of the sanitarium (having played a mute to such good effect in "Out of the Past") and Tor Johnson as the insane boxer. . . proving once and for all that Johnson cashed paychecks in Hollywood before joining forces with the shlockmeister Ed Wood. Ralf Harolde (Dr. Sonderburg in "Murder, My Sweet") plays Hopps, a decent warder in an otherwise corrupt institution.

"Behind Locked Doors" is Lucille Bremer's final screen credit. She was another beauty who did not achieve Hollywood stardom despite appearing opposite Fred Astaire in two musicals and an important role in "Ruthless." She married and retired after this film. Richard Carlson is fine as the wisecracking and amorous detective in his first role since starring opposite Turhan Bey and Lynn Bari in the John Alton photographed cult favorite "The Amazing Mr. X."

Of the two films, I would rate "Behind Locked Doors" better on account of its gripping and more original plot. The film is much more tightly paced without a wasted minute. "Shock" tends to exploit a few cliches and slows down ever so often, including a violent dark and stormy night that still works somehow. An interest effect is that Mrs. Cross is never seen directly on camera. She is heard in the opening and her voice is heard in two flashback sequences when her adulterous and murdering husband is suffering pangs of remorse. One gets the idea that Cross married for money and having graduated from medical school and achieved financial success he has tired of his dowager wife and wants a trophy wife instead. Dr. Richard Cross is an interesting villain in that he possess a little more complexity than one might associate with a quickie film.

Eugene Ling and producer Aubrey Schenk would go on to collaborate on several other noirs after "Behind Locked Doors," including "The Port of New York" another film patterned after "He Walked By Night" and "T-Men."

These are two fine shadow filled films for a dark and stormy night. Don't forget your strait jacket.