Criterion | 1963 | 101 mins. | NR
If you found yourself fascinated by Martin Scorsese’s latest effort, Shutter Island, I suggest picking up Shock Corridor. Recently released on DVD by the Criterion Collection, Scorsese has said Shock Corridor was one of the movies he showed his cast before the filming of Shutter Island began. Having watched the former twice over the last couple of weeks, it’s easy to see why Marty may have drawn inspiration from writer/director Samuel Fuller’s 1963 work; both films involve a murder investigation inside an asylum and the lengthy exposure to the mentally ill threatens to drive the investigator over the edge.
Peter Breck stars as Johnny Barrett, an ambitious reporter who goes undercover at a mental hospital to solve a murder. On the face of it, this isn’t a particularly unique premise, but only a filmmaker like Fuller could take viewers on the deep, dark journey the story becomes. A pulp novelist, Fuller often exhibited a real showman’s flair in his films (as he does here), ringing out every ounce of moral contradiction, hypocrisy and dramatic moment available.
The first sequence of Shock Corridor sets up the story: We witness a conversation between Johnny and Dr. Fong (Philip Ahn), that appears to be a real psychiatric evaluation until Johnny’s clumsy mention of fetishism makes Dr. Fong lose his temper—the two are rehearsing for Johnny’s attempted charade, and the psychiatrist is trying to coach Johnny how to sound nuts without overdoing it. D.P. Stanley Cortez, who brilliantly photographed the deep-focus and deep-seated domestic envies of Welles’ Magnificent Ambersons and the fairy-tale dread of Laughton’s Night of the Hunter, invests this opening scene with expert unease, toying with our grasp of depth in several shots and only gradually revealing the presence of other people in the room: Swanee Swanson (Bill Zuckert), Johnny’s boss at the paper, and Cathy (Constance Towers), Johnny’s skeptical girlfriend, who is desperately reneging on an earlier promise to aid Johnny’s cause by claiming to be his sister and accusing him of assault with incestuous intent. she doesn’t understand how he’ll withstand weeks, maybe months of confinement and, worse, of so-called “treatm theent” and emerge any less fractured than the patients on the ward.
After being committed, Johnny is allowed to roam central corridor known as “the street”; a place where the patients socialize and the place Fuller unleashes race riots, electrical storms and general unease. In the corridor Johnny confronts the three murder witnesses (all causalities of America’s racism, violent history and warmongering) and individually pumps them for the name of the killer, hoping he can catch them in a lucid moment. Stuart (James Best) is a racist Korean War veteran Southerner, who disgraced himself during the war and betrayed other captured American soldiers to the Reds. He has withdrawn from reality and believes he’s Confederate General Jeb Stuart, concerned about Civil War missions. Trent (Hari Rhodes) was the first black student to be admitted to an all-white southern university and cracked from the pressure. He now thinks he is a white supremacist. Dr. Boden (Gene Evans) was once considered America’s most brilliant scientist and worked on developing the atomic bomb, but cracked-up and now has the mentality of a six-year old who likes to play hide and seek and draw with crayons. Also roaming the corridor is the imposing wife killer Pagliacci (Larry Tucker), who has temper tantrums and is always singing opera arias from the masters.
As Johnny gathers clues about the murder, there are hints of the tragedy that awaits him. He is given electroshock treatment, suffers at the hands of the female ward’s inhabitants (“Nymphos!” shudders Breck’s voiceover), and begins to delude himself that his devoted girlfriend really is his sister.
Fuller was never considered about giving viewers a happy ending. Knowing that, guessing what would become of Johnny is easy. In a larger sense though, Shock Corridor is an in-your-face indictment of racism, war and the military industrial complex—topics that were hot button issues in 1963, and remain an important part of the political fabric almost fifty years later.
Framed in 1.7.5:1 aspect ratio, the black-and-white cinematography of Stanley Cortez looks wonderful. Despite the 10 day shoot and kimited budget, Criterion’s transfer has made this film look like top notch stuff with no digital issues.
The mono sound is clear and occasionally atmospheric, as in Peter Breck’s interior-monologue voiceover and Constance Towers’s strip number in which her voice calls “Johnnnyyy…”
There are only a few special features but they’re good. An interview with Constance Towers (29 min.) was conducted in 2007 by film historian and filmmaker Charles Dennis, half of the nearly hour-long interview that is broken up over both this disc and Criterion´s The Naked Kiss release.
The prize here is the 55-minute BFI/IFC co-production The Typewriter, The Rifle and the Movie Camera, a 1996 documentary directed by Adam Simon. Tim Robbins hosts/narrates with ample interviews with Sam Fuller and appearances by fans/filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch and Martin Scorsese.
A Theatrical Trailer (3 min.) is also included.
The 28-page insert booklet contains an essay by critic Robert Polito and an excerpt from Fuller´s autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking.
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