Shock Corridor (1963) on Netflix
Johnny Barrett, a journalist, wants a Pulitzer Prize. Psychiatrist Dr. Fong coaches him to fake insanity so he can enter a psychiatric hospital and find out who killed a patient there.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb7.3/1014,164 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Johnny Barrett, a reporter for the Daily Globe, wants to win a Pulitzer Prize. A patient named Sloan has been murdered in a psychiatric hospital, and the police have gotten nothing from the three inmates who saw it. His editor Swanson and the psychiatrist Dr. Fong, who spent a year training him, help him fake insanity. His girlfriend Cathy, an exotic dancer, poses as his sister and files an incest complaint, and Barrett is committed to the institution where Sloan died. Inside, he looks for the three witnesses, each of whom has brief lucid moments, while Cathy, who is against the plan, fears the tests and constant exposure will affect him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Shock Corridor (1963)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Samuel Fuller first wrote the film in the late 1940s under the title Straitjacket for director Fritz Lang, but Lang wanted the lead character changed into a woman so that Joan Bennett could play the role.
- Belmont Books brought out a novelization of the screenplay in 1963, written by pulp author Michael Avallone; Samuel Fuller tried to stop the book for plagiarism, but when it appeared both writers were credited.
- In 1996 the Library of Congress selected Shock Corridor for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, calling it culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
- Martin Scorsese's 2010 film Shutter Island is said to be influenced by Shock Corridor, the 1963 psychological thriller written and directed by Samuel Fuller.
