Originally written by Samuel Fuller for Fritz Lang, Shock Corridor is an entry in the sub-sub-genre of people who lie to get into a mental hospital, only to have it bite them in the ass in the end. Granted, as far as I know there's just this and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, but I like to think that there are a number of filmmakers who can't resist these stories. There's a hubris at play with our Shock Corridor protagonist Johnny Barrett, a journalist who wants to solve a murder mystery involving an inmate. He swears that by going deep undercover and cracking this case, he'll write a story so great that it'll win him the Pulitzer Prize. It works, and at the end he's somehow lucid enough to write the story, but his brain has become so damaged from being in that environment that he becomes catatonic and is permanently committed. Cue slide whistle.
I can't help but think that stories like this and Cuckoo's Nest are almost reactions to the insanity defense that criminals sometimes use to get away with murder. A public that's out for vengeance doesn't care if a murderer is legitimately insane. They want him either imprisoned for life or executed, preferably the later. Therefore, the story of someone lying to get into a madhouse and then suffering for it has a sick satisfaction for revenge-minded viewers. Johnny's not a bad guy, but he does have a big ego and is purposely playing with fire here. You don't hate him for his cockiness, but you do want to see him suffer a bit. The punishment Fuller gives him at the end is way out of proportion to his sins, but it still makes for a great story, especially when you already know what's coming and see the step-by-step process of Johnny clearly faking it early on and then losing his mind completely.
The murder mystery here is weak, just like it was in The Naked Kiss. It's a McGuffin that neither Fuller nor the audience gives a shit about. I'm willing to bet that there wasn't a single viewer who cared about the identity of the killer, and that's because Fuller is more interested in showcasing different forms of insanity and what caused them. The scenes of inmates snapping back to reality, giving their origin stories, and then going mad again are the meat of this film. Johnny pesters them the entire time for the identity of the killer, but mostly you want Johnny to shut up so you can hear where these people came from. There's a political/social bent to each of these stories, and while you already know that Communism and racism were big topics in the 60s, I like how Fuller uses them as issues that can literally drive a person insane. There's a lot of goofball antics, such as the fat guy who keeps singing opera and forces Johnny to chew several pieces of gum to help him sleep, but everything is caked with layers of unease about society, and even the funny scenes feel creepy.
I've only seen three Fuller films (the other being The Big Red One), and this is my favorite. The ending is never in doubt, and the relationship between Johnny and his girlfriend Cathy almost reaches Tennessee Williams heights of melodrama, and all of that works for this kind of film. This is one of those "your mileage may vary" films, but with my tastes, I loved it. Therefore, this one is going to get ranked a bit high. My love of this particular kind of drama outweighs my love of gorgeous, operatic shoot 'em ups, so I think I'm going to sandwich Shock Corridor between Grand Illusion and Hard Boiled.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Shock Corridor (1963)
7. Hard Boiled (1992)
8. The 400 Blows (1959)
9. Walkabout (1971)
10. The Killer (1989)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Naked Kiss (1964)
13. A Night to Remember (1958)
14. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
15. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
16. Amarcord (1973)
17. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
Next time: I bring out the farewell drugs for Sid and Nancy.
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