The word “auteur” gets thrown around a lot when it comes to writer/directors. Very few of them have a filmography infused with such a singular voice and vision that befits the term. For me, Sam Fuller is one of the few definitive auteurs in film history and Shock Corridor very well may be his masterpiece.
Peter (The Big Valley) Breck stars as a journalist with dreams of winning a Pulitzer Prize who goes undercover as a mental patient in an insane asylum to solve a murder. The list of crazies/potential witnesses include an opera singing nut (Larry Tucker), a kook who thinks he’s a Civil War general (The Dukes of Hazzard’s James Best), a black Klansman (Hari Rhodes), and an infantile physicist (Fuller regular Gene Evans). The only problem is the longer Breck stays in the asylum, the more the line between journalist and patient begins to blur.
Shock Corridor has a hard-hitting pulpy style that is genuine. Many directors try for this sort of larger than life feel and fumble it, but it comes naturally for Fuller. While his westerns of the ‘50s are often very good, it’s his noirs from the ‘60s that remain touchstones. Of all his films, this is probably his most cinematic and haunting, as it is a harrowing account of ambition and madness.
At times, it feels like a genre-bending version of a detective story as it shares a similar structure, but the setting and unforgettable characters (especially Rhodes) make for an unshakable experience. Other times, it feels like a nightmare you can’t wake up from. In either case, Fuller’s blunt force trauma directing style makes it certain you’re in for one helluva ride.
Breck (who also starred in The Crawling Hand, Hootenanny Hoot, and this, all in the same year) is excellent in the lead as he sways from “faking it” to becoming dangerously close to actual madness. Constance Towers, who was also in Fuller’s equally memorable The Naked Kiss, does a great striptease dance number and looks especially terrific when she appears to Breck as a vision while in the nuthouse. Their performances, along with Fuller’s unmistakable style, make Shock Corridor an all-timer.
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