Shock Corridor (The Criterion Collection)
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Actor: Constance Towers, Gene Evans, Hari Rhodes, James Best, Peter BreckBrand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 101 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1998-08-26
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
DVD Reviews of Shock Corridor (The Criterion Collection)
DVD Review: "Whom God wishes to destroy, He firsts makes mad."
Summary: 4 Stars
Shock Corridor (1963), was written and directed by Samuel Fuller, who was also responsible for The Naked Kiss (1964), stars Peter Breck as Johnny Barrett, a reporter with his eye on winning the Pulitzer prize, has himself committed to an insane asylum in order to talk to three inmates who witnessed the murder of another inmate within the asylum. He hopes to learn the identity of murderer, solving a case the police couldn't, and writing the story of a lifetime. With the assistance of a mental health expert and his newspaper editor, Johnny trains for a year on how to be crazy in order to pull off the scheme, and then has his girlfriend Cathy (Constance Towers), an exotic dancer, act as his sister to claim Johnny is in love with her in more than just a 'brotherly' way, which would allow for his committal to the institution to the mental hospital. She is extremely reluctant to do so as she fears for his mental state and what may happen while Johnny is locked away with so much insanity. Once inside, Johnny must keep his act believable, while trying to gather information from the three lunatics who witnessed the murder of a fellow inmate. As the story of the murder begins to unfold, Johnny is subject to treatments and such reserved for the mentally unhinged, and living among these individuals causes problems within Johnny's own mental state. Will he learn the identity of the killer before madness overtakes him?
Supporting characters include James Best as Stuart, an inmate who believes he's an officer in the confederate army. Many will probably recognize him as bumbling sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane from the 70's television show The Dukes of Hazzard. He is really a great actor, much better than he let on in that show. Gene Evans play Boden, a once brilliant nuclear scientist now reduced to a childlike state due to pressures from his position. Evans appeared in a ton of movies throughout the 50's and 60's, and then transitioned to mostly television work in the 70's. I mainly remember him in Nevada Smith (1966) with Steve McQueen. This drama was comparable in many ways to me to the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). In both movies, you have a person entering an asylum under false pretenses, acting the part in order to stay within the system, and suffering from the close association with the mentally diseased. The big difference is while One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest had bits of humor nestled throughout the movie, this was a fairly straight up drama with little or no humor (unless you count Johnny's mistakenly entering the room full of nymphomaniacs and barely escaping with his life). Also, I didn't find myself connecting with the characters here so much as I did with 'Cuckoo's Nest', but the performances were pretty believable. The film ended pretty much as I thought it would, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable for me. The film did incorporate a number of socially relevant topics including racism, bigotry, communism, and incest, among other things. I thought the character of Trent (Hari Rhodes), an inmate who was once the first black college student at an all white school but cracked under the pressure, and now spouts racial slogans reserved for members of the clan, was pretty odd. I did laugh a couple of times when Trent, believing his was white, would get the others all worked up, and then chase an older, black inmate around the halls. The poor man...he would step foot out of his room while Trent was in the middle of a diatribe, and Trent would spot him, encouraging the rest to chase him and knock the stuffing out of him. Another unintentionally funny moment was when the one doctor was talking to Johnny about his fetish with his 'sister' and the doctor speaks of puberty, but instead says 'poo-berty'. I don't know why, but it made me laugh...I guess I'm silly like that.
The print here is very crisp and clear, but there are flaws at a few points, where the film must have been damaged. The picture is in wide screen, and also includes the original color sequences, which I heard, weren't in some earlier releases. The film itself is in black and white. Special features are lacking, basically only including a trailer, which surprised me a little, as Criterion usually supplies much in this area. There is also a nice insert with plenty of information about the film.
Cookieman108
Description of Shock Corridor (The Criterion Collection)
Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, a reporter has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Writer/director/producer Samuel Fuller masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia. Criterion is proud to present Shock Corridor in a gorgeous, black and white widescreen transfer with its rarely-seen color sequences.Maverick film director Samuel Fuller was doing some of his best work in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and in the years since its release in 1963, Shock Corridor has become a B-movie classic and a prime example of Fuller's gritty tabloid style. Never hesitant to explore the darkened corners of contemporary life, Fuller depicts the chambers of an insane asylum as a microcosm of American society, telling the story of a cynical, ambitious journalist (Peter Breck) whose obsessive quest for a Pulitzer Prize leads him into the depths of madness. To investigate a murder, the reporter goes undercover in a mental hospital, having convinced a psychiatrist that he needs treatment. Once inside the asylum, he pieces together clues to the murder, but his own mind begins to deteriorate until he's trapped in a downward spiral towards insanity. Fuller heightens the melodrama with his aggressive style of filmmaking (his next film, The Naked Kiss, proved even more effective), and his imaginative use of black-and-white cinematography (by noted cameraman Stanley Cortez) fills the movie with raw, emotional power. It's the kind of film one would expect from a rebellious director on the Hollywood fringe, and that's why Shock Corridor remains an enduring low-budget examination of the "rat race" and the consequences of pursuing success at any cost. The Criterion Collection DVD presents the film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and a rarely seen color dream sequence has been fully restored. --Jeff Shannon
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