Saturday 7 March 2020

Shock Corridor (1963 Samuel Fuller & scr, prod)

Like its sinister sister, The Naked Kiss, this is another febrile nightmare made in the same vivid style - if anything, it's even more feverish, building to crazy crescendos. You can't take your eyes off either of them.

In an incredibly committed performance, Peter Breck goes through several scenes of intense physicality before ending up in a catatonic trance, to get the story behind a murder in a mental institution. This allows for some mad social commentary, especially where black patient Hari Rhodes acts as the most racist KKK you've ever heard.

All the acting is credible, which just makes the nightmare more vivid. Girlfriend Constance Towers and editor Gene Evans are on the sane outside, James Best, Larry Tucker, Paul Dubov, Chuck Roberson are inside.

Compelling chiaroscuro camerawork from Stanley Cortez also intensifies the vision.


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