A journalist has himself committed to a mental institution to investigate an unsolved murder that occurred there.
Writer-director Samuel Fuller is a true American iconoclast, a man who rose from paper boy to crime reporter in a ten-year newspaper career, followed by success as a pulp novelist until he volunteered for military service in World War II and found himself with the army's renowned 1st Infantry Division. After the war and several independently financed films, Fuller managed to secure a 7-picture contract with 20th Century Fox, where he was given relative artistic freedom. Shock Corridor was made after this period, where Fuller went back to independent financing to explore more controversial subject matter.
Throughout his career, Fuller explored themes avoided by most of his contemporaries in a wide range of genres. He was known for his multicultural casts in a time when it was difficult for minorities to get anything other than token roles, and tended to focus his stories on society's less-glamorous individuals.
Shock Corridor was supposedly shot in only ten days on a single soundstage, but it is packed to the brim with ideas. In addition to being an expose of poor conditions of mental hospitals, the film puts the troubled state of America in the 1960's right in the spotlight, addressing racism, the fear of nuclear war and communism, and sexual dysfunction. Despite a limited budged, the film's striking visual style is aided by the striking cinematography of veteran Stanley Cortez (who had worked with Orson Welles in the 1940's) as well as clever in-camera effects.
The film stars Peter Breck, Constance Towers (who would go on to star in Fuller's next film), Fuller mainstay Gene Evans, and James Best (known to modern audiences from his role on The Dukes of Hazzard). While not a major studio release, Shock Corridor still managed to do very good business and received positive reviews. It is now considered to be one of Fuller's best works, and in 1996 was chosen by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Fuller's bold, "tabloid" style did not bring him much critical respect in his own country while he made films here, but the French New Wave critics-turned-directors considered him an important auteur. Fuller appeared as himself in a cameo in Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 film Pierrot Le Fou, explaining his definition of cinema on-camera, and after controversy ended his American film career, he lived in Paris for almost 15 years. Modern filmmakers who consider him an influence include Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, and Quentin Tarantino.
Running time is approximately 100 minutes.
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