Archive of films Shock Corridor / Shock Corridor
USA
1963, 101 min
Section:
Tribute to Samuel Fuller
Year: 2011
Psychological instability, racism, patriotism, the nuclear threat, and sexual perversion are the topics at hand in Fuller’s story of an ambitious newspaperman named Johnny, who, in his drive to win a Pulitzer Prize, pretends to be a pervert in order to enter a psychiatric clinic and solve a murder recently committed there. Camerawork by Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons, The Night of the Hunter).
Synopsis
At the end of the 1940s Sam Fuller wrote a script for Fritz Lang entitled Straitjacket. Although never realized, Fuller himself pulled it out of the drawer at the beginning of the ’60s, updated it, and shot a title that enjoys cult status today. Fuller added thirtysomething Johnny Barrett to his charismatic gallery of characters who are hard to identify with. With his girlfriend’s help, the ambitious and mercurial newspaperman pretends to be a sexual pervert in order to enter a psychiatric clinic; one of the patients was recently murdered and Johnny pictures himself accepting a Pulitzer Prize for convicting the perpetrator. But under the influence of the madhouse environment, the border between Johnny’s sham mental aberration and his actual psychological state gradually begins to blur. Fuller sends Johnny to an isolated territory as a way of metaphorically expressing the state of American society at the beginning of the 1960s. Psychological instability, racism, patriotism, the nuclear threat, and sexual perversion are topics which Fuller treats in a rather unusual way. He invited outstanding cameraman Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons, The Night of the Hunter) to collaborate on the film, and he contributed to its heightened expressivity through the consistent use of a single light source in each scene.
Contacts
Beta Cinema GmbH
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Classic films distribución s.l
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About the film
Black & white, 35 mm
Section: | Tribute to Samuel Fuller |
---|---|
Director: | Samuel Fuller |
Screenplay: | Samuel Fuller |
Dir. of Photography: | Stanley Cortez |
Music: | Paul Dunlap |
Editor: | Jerome Thoms |
Producer: | Samuel Fuller |
Production: | Leon Fromkess-Sam Firks Productions |
Cast: | Peter Breck, Constance Towers, Gene Evans, James Best, Hari Rhodes |
Contact: | Beta Cinema GmbH, Classic films distribución s.l |