Bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, a journalist commits himself to a mental institution to solve a strange and unclear murder.Bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, a journalist commits himself to a mental institution to solve a strange and unclear murder.Bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, a journalist commits himself to a mental institution to solve a strange and unclear murder.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 2 nominations
Bill Zuckert
- 'Swanee' Swanson
- (as William Zuckert)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaBecause of the film's budget and the size of the sound stage, Samuel Fuller hired little people to walk around in the far section of the corridor to give audiences a greater sense of depth.
- GoofsThe opening quotation, "Whom god wishes to destroy he first makes mad" is incorrect since though the idea probably originates in ancient Greece, the ancient Greeks were polytheistic and would have referred to 'the gods,' and the attribution to Eurypides is false.
- Quotes
Johnny Barrett: Nymphos!
- Crazy creditsThe quote "Whom God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad". Euripides 425 B.C." appears at the beginning and end.
- ConnectionsEdited from House of Bamboo (1955)
- Soundtracks(I Wish I Was in) Dixie's Land
(uncredited)
aka "Dixie"
Music by Daniel Decatur Emmett
Whistled by James Best (Stuart); also played on the piano during the dance therapy session.
Featured review
Disturbing look at mental wards has its moments...needs better script...
Samuel Fuller's direction helps keep SHOCK CORRIDOR watchable but the script is never valid enough to make the film anything more than an interesting experiment that is only half successful.
PETER BRECK does a good job as a newspaper reporter with only one thought on his mind. ("Who killed Slade in the kitchen?"). He goes undercover at a mental institute in order to uncover the truth. His girl friend CONSTANCE TOWERS agrees to help get him get incarcerated on the pretense that he's her brother and tried to rape her.
That premise alone is hard to make believable the quick succession of events that lead to Breck's being shoved into a psycho ward. Director Fuller lets the camera discover several other rather interesting patients but none of them are fully developed as characters we can care about.
Without revealing the disturbing ending, let me just say you're liable to get hooked into watching the film if you happen to catch it from the start. It's worth a watch, if only to see where all the story strands are going.
But when it's all over, you have to wonder whether anyone can really take the story seriously. Good try though--and Breck really gives his all to his volatile bursts of temper.
PETER BRECK does a good job as a newspaper reporter with only one thought on his mind. ("Who killed Slade in the kitchen?"). He goes undercover at a mental institute in order to uncover the truth. His girl friend CONSTANCE TOWERS agrees to help get him get incarcerated on the pretense that he's her brother and tried to rape her.
That premise alone is hard to make believable the quick succession of events that lead to Breck's being shoved into a psycho ward. Director Fuller lets the camera discover several other rather interesting patients but none of them are fully developed as characters we can care about.
Without revealing the disturbing ending, let me just say you're liable to get hooked into watching the film if you happen to catch it from the start. It's worth a watch, if only to see where all the story strands are going.
But when it's all over, you have to wonder whether anyone can really take the story seriously. Good try though--and Breck really gives his all to his volatile bursts of temper.
Helpful•1810
- How long is Shock Corridor?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Sprache
- Also known as
- Straightjacket
- Filming locations
- Kotoku-in, Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan(dream sequence: Great Buddha of Kamakura)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 41 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
![Shock Corridor (1963)](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNzFhZWQzNDctOWEwOC00MjU1LThlZjUtZjA4MDMxZDgxMzkxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTUzMDUzNTI3._V1_QL75_UX90_CR0,2,90,133_.jpg)