Editing Shock Corridor

{{Short description|1963 film by Samuel Fuller}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Shock Corridor
| image          = Shock Corridor (1963 poster).jpg
| alt            = 
| caption        = Theatrical release poster
| director       = [[Samuel Fuller]]
| producer       = Samuel Fuller
| writer         = Samuel Fuller
| screenplay     = 
| story          = 
| based_on       = <!-- {{based on|title of the original work|writer of the original work}} -->
| narrator       = 
| starring       = {{Plainlist|
* [[Peter Breck]]
* [[Constance Towers]]
* [[Gene Evans]]
* [[James Best]]
}}
| music          = [[Paul Dunlap]]
| cinematography = [[Stanley Cortez]]
| editing        = [[Jerome Thoms]]
| studio         = [[Allied Artists Pictures]]
| distributor    = Allied Artists Pictures
| released       = {{Film date|1963|09|11}}
| runtime        = 101 minutes
| country        = United States
| language       = English
| budget         = 
| gross          = 
}}
'''''Shock Corridor''''' is a 1963 American [[psychological thriller]] film{{sfn|Kolker|2011|p=223}} starring [[Peter Breck]], [[Constance Towers]], and [[Gene Evans]]. Written, directed and produced by [[Samuel Fuller]], it tells the story of a journalist who gets himself intentionally committed to a [[mental hospital]] to solve a murder committed within the institution.<ref>[http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/41233/motion-picture-purgatory-shock-corridor Motion Picture Purgatory – Shock Corridor]</ref>

In 1996, ''Shock Corridor'' was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref name=Registry>{{Cite web|title=Complete National Film Registry Listing |url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/|access-date=January 17, 2021|website=Library of Congress}}</ref>

==Plot==
Bent on winning a [[Pulitzer Prize]], ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett hopes to uncover the facts behind the unsolved murder of Sloan, an inmate at a [[psychiatric hospital]]. He convinces an expert psychiatrist, Dr. Fong, to coach him to appear insane when it involves relating imaginary accounts of [[incest]] with his "sister", who is impersonated by his [[striptease|exotic-dancer]] girlfriend, Cathy; though against her wishes, she is talked into assisting him by filing a police complaint, and his performance during the investigation convinces the authorities to incarcerate him in the institution where the murder took place. Johnny is quickly disturbed by the behavior of his fellow inmates, and on one occasion is mauled by a group of female [[hypersexuality|nymphomania]]cs who assault him in their ward.

Johnny learns the murder had three witnesses, each driven insane by a particular stress (each witness represents one of the obsessions of Americans at that time; war, racism, fear of nuclear annihilation) but capable of occasional, brief periods of sanity. The first witness, Stuart, is the son of a Southern [[sharecropper]] who was taught bigotry and hatred as a child. He was captured in the [[Korean War]] and was [[Brainwashing|brainwashed]] into becoming a [[Communist]]. Stuart was ordered to indoctrinate a fellow prisoner, but instead the prisoner's unwavering patriotism reformed him. Stuart's captors pronounced him insane and he was returned to the United States in a prisoner exchange, after which he received a dishonorable discharge and was publicly reviled as a traitor. Stuart now imagines himself to be [[Confederate States of America]] General [[J.E.B. Stuart]]. Through conversation with Stuart, Johnny discerns that the killer was likely a hospital staff member, as Stuart recalled the assailant was dressed in white.

The second witness to Sloan's murder, Trent, was one of the first black students to [[School segregation in the United States|integrate a segregated Southern university]]. Psychologically traumatized by the abuses he suffered there, he now imagines himself a member of the [[Ku Klux Klan]], and stirs up the patients with [[White nationalism|white nationalist]] dogma. The third and final witness is Boden, an [[atomic scientist]] scarred by the knowledge of the devastating power of intercontinental ballistic missiles. He has regressed to the mentality of a six-year-old child.

After a hospital riot, Barrett is [[straitjacket]]ed and subjected to [[Electroconvulsive therapy|shock treatment]], and comes to believe Cathy is truly his sister, rejecting her when she visits. He experiences many other symptoms of mental breakdown while he learns the identity of the killer - Wilkes, a hospital attendant who committed the murder to cover up his sexual liaisons with numerous female patients. Johnny confronts Wilkes in the [[hydrotherapy]] room, and begins a violent altercation with him, eventually extracting a confession in front of witnesses.

Wilkes is apprehended, and Johnny is finally able to write his story on Sloan's murder, but the ordeal leaves him with a shattered psyche, and he is diagnosed with [[schizophrenia]]. Some time later, Cathy visits Johnny in the hospital. She laments to a psychologist about Johnny's mental decline, as Johnny sits idly in a [[catatonia|catatonic]] state.

==Cast==
{{Cast listing|
*[[Peter Breck]] as Johnny Barrett
*[[Constance Towers]] as Cathy
*[[Gene Evans]] as Boden
*[[James Best]] as Stuart
*[[Hari Rhodes]] as Trent
*[[Larry Tucker (screenwriter)|Larry Tucker]] as Pagliacci
*[[Paul Dubov]] as Dr. Menkin
*[[Chuck Roberson]] as Wilkes
*[[Bill Zuckert]] as Swanson
*[[Philip Ahn]] as Dr. Fong
}}

==Production==
Fuller originally wrote the film under the title ''Straitjacket'' for [[Fritz Lang]] in the late 1940s, but Lang wanted to change the lead character to a woman, so [[Joan Bennett]] could play the role.{{sfn|Fuller|2002|p=242}}

The film was shot on a ten-day shooting schedule with scarce resources.<ref>[https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s3414corr.html DVD Savant Blu--ray Review: Shock Corridor - DVD Talk]</ref>

Constance Towers was asked by Fuller to be in the film during dinner at Fuller's house.<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Fangoria]]|title=Shock to the System|last=Alexander|first=Chris|date=January 2011|issue=299|pages=66–67|url=https://archive.org/details/Fangoria_299_2011/page/n65/mode/2up}}</ref>

==Release==
It has been released by the [[Criterion Collection]] on different formats, starting with [[LaserDisc]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/23/movies/homevideo/23kehr.html|title=Samuel Fuller, Eccentric Stylist of Poverty Row|last=Kehr|first=Dave|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=January 21, 2011|access-date=January 17, 2021}}</ref>

===Reception===
On [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film holds an approval rating of 94% based on {{nowrap|17 reviews}}, with a [[weighted average]] rating of 7.86/10.<ref name="rottomatoes">{{cite web|title=Shock Corridor (1963) - Rotten Tomatoes|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/shock_corridor/|website=Rotten Tomatoes.com|publisher=Rotten Tomatoes|access-date=13 August 2019}}</ref> 
Author and film critic [[Leonard Maltin]] awarded the film three out of a possible four stars, calling it a "[p]owerful melodrama with raw, emotional impact."<ref name="MaltinGreen2010">{{cite book|author1=Leonard Maltin|author2=Spencer Green|author3=Rob Edelman|title=Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hLtaAAAAYAAJ|date=January 2010|publisher=Plume|isbn=978-0-452-29577-3|page=594}}</ref> [[Andrew Sarris]] praised the film as "...an allegory of America today, not so much surreal as subreal in its hallucinatory view of history which can only be perceived beneath a littered surface of plot intrigue... a distinguished addition to that art form in which Hollywood has always excelled: the Baroque B-picture."<ref>[https://366weirdmovies.com/shock-corridor-1963/ 366 Weird Movies]</ref>

In 1996, ''Shock Corridor'' was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref name=Registry/>

[[Martin Scorsese]]'s 2010 film ''[[Shutter Island (film)|Shutter Island]]'' is said to be influenced by this film.<ref>[https://film.list.co.uk/article/24050-how-shutter-island-invokes-the-spirit-of-sam-fuller-and-shock-corridor-martin-scorsese-interview/ How Shutter Island invokes the spirit of Sam Fuller and Shock Corridor - Martin Scorsese interview|The List]</ref><ref>[https://www.kpbs.org/news/2010/feb/19/shutter-island/ Shutter Island|KPBS]</ref>

==Novelization==

Concurrent with the release of the film in 1963, [[Belmont Books]] released a [[novelization]] of the screenplay, written by one of the era's most popular and distinctive paperback pulpsmiths, [[Michael Avallone]].<ref>[https://archive.org/details/shockcorridorblu00mich Shock corridor: Avallone, Michael-Internet Archive]</ref>  Fuller wanted to stop Avallone's book for plagiarism, but both writers were credited when it was released.<ref>[https://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/archives/199801/0125.html Re: RARA-AVIS: Sam Fuller]</ref>

==Legacy==

A Melbourne based band took influence from the film now going by the same name, see Shock Corridor (Band)
 
==See also==
*[[List of cult films]]
*[[Mental illness in film]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*{{Cite book|last=Fuller|first=Samuel|author-link=Samuel Fuller|title=A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking|year=2002|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|location=New York City, New York|isbn= 978-0-375-40165-7}}
*{{cite book|last=Kolker|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Kolker|year=2011|title=A Cinema of Loneliness|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford, England|isbn= 978-0-199-78028-0|edition=4th}}

==External links==
{{Commons category|Shock Corridor}}
* {{AFI film|21520}}
*{{IMDb title|0057495}}
* {{rotten-tomatoes|shock_corridor}}
*[https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1716-shock-corridor-lindywood-confidential ''Shock Corridor: Lindywood Confidential''] an essay by [[Robert Polito]] at the [[Criterion Collection]]

{{Samuel Fuller}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1963 films]]
[[Category:1960s psychological drama films]]
[[Category:1963 independent films]]
[[Category:1960s psychological thriller films]]
[[Category:Allied Artists films]]
[[Category:American black-and-white films]]
[[Category:American independent films]]
[[Category:American neo-noir films]]
[[Category:American thriller films]]
[[Category:1960s English-language films]]
[[Category:Films about journalists]]
[[Category:Films about psychiatry]]
[[Category:Films about racism in the United States]]
[[Category:Films directed by Samuel Fuller]]
[[Category:Films scored by Paul Dunlap]]
[[Category:Films set in psychiatric hospitals]]
[[Category:Films with screenplays by Samuel Fuller]]
[[Category:1963 drama films]]
[[Category:United States National Film Registry films]]
[[Category:1960s American films]]
[[Category:English-language independent films]]
[[Category:English-language thriller films]]