Shock (1946)

Why so much hype?

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Shock is a superlative 1946 film noir that could not be named more appropriately for a highly appraised production.Janet Stewart checks in alone at a large city central hotel called the Belmont Arms. She experiences a terrible nightmare and is soon-after a witness to an absolutely mind shattering murder surrounding a divorce argument in an adjoining hotel room window.Thereafter she acquires a profound state of nervous mental collapse and medical help is immediately summoned to her bedside by her returning husband Lt. Paul Stewart.Dr. Cross is a nationally recognized psychiatrist coincidentally staying at the hotel and makes an emergency discovery of Janet.After learning more, Dr. Cross takes careful charge of Janet indicating she will be given a best chance of recovery from nervous shock using repeated insulin shock therapies.Janet is then managed by Dr. Cross's co-conspirator and lover nurse Elaine Jordan who helps to remove Janet to the outlying country private sanitarium of Dr. Cross for extended therapy.Janet receives injections on arrival and Dr. Cross then attempts hypnotherapy to induce Janet to regain and confess to any memories. Dr. Cross then confides in Elaine that Janet has seen everything.Elaine meets with Dr. Cross in private and he reveals that he murdered his wife at the hotel before arranging for his wife's corpse to be shipped to his country lodge labelled as personal property, but he stresses that no one saw her enter the hotel and the murder was not premeditated.Dr. Cross repeats hypnotherapy to induce Janet to forget all her bad memories. He tells Elaine the delivery of his wife's corpse will be dropped off at his lodge.Janet is reported as hallucinating about having witnessed a murder. The body of Mrs. Cross is now recovered dashed against some mountain rocks in an apparent accident.At this time Janet regains awareness when Paul visits, and she emotionally confesses the observed murderer is Dr. Cross. Dr. Cross shows Janet the news of his wife's death, implying the dates between Janet's incident and recovery of Mrs. Cross's corpse do not coincide, and encourages Janet to accept she is mentally incompetent.District Attorney O'Neill now wants to exhume Mrs. Cross for expert examination pending a murder is ruled out as a cause of death.D.A. O'Neill brings a coroner's inquest appeal for the murder of Mrs. Cross, and is looking for a waxed silver candlestick to match as the murder weapon. He is trying to fix the exact time of death.Dr. Cross premeditates four injections for Janet with a last being a planned overdose. He then reassures Paul the treatment is her last chance at a recovery. Janet gets 60, 80, and 100 units and then a fourth treatment.Paul brings suspicious news to the attention of Dr. Harvey and they agree to pay Dr. Cross a visit in person. Janet is experiencing trauma and Dr. Cross is reluctant to do anything more.Dr. Cross re-actively murders desperate nurse Elaine during an off chance argument over refusing to administer a major overdose. Paul and Dr. Harvey get to Janet in time for a rescue.O'Neill arrives in the office of Dr. Cross when he instinctively considers his case for a small moment and very casually volunteers himself into protective custody.

I really enjoyed this one,, sure it doesn't have a lot of the guts and blood or scare tactics as most of the Vincent Price movies, but I felt like this particular movie didn't really need that,, a woman waiting at a hotel for her husband to come home form WW2 , get's the news that her husband is delayed but will be home soon,, so right before she goes to bed she walks to the window and witnesses something horrific ,, a man choking a woman to death.. from this point on she is rather useless, she goes into shock,, a catatonic state,, a Dr. is called in to help her and low and behold it's the same man at the window who killed the woman,, when the woman finally does wake up she tries to put out to different people that the good Dr. is the killer but no one really seems to pay her much mind,, very good movie a must see.

Top-billed Vincent Price gives a characteristic performance in this well-directed (Alfred Werker) noir, filmed on a top budget ($375,000) by 20th Century Fox. True, eager-beaver Frank Latimore is somewhat miscast as a returned soldier. He seems too fresh-faced and innocent to have taken an active part in the army, unless he spent the war as a paper-shuffler in Washington or some other safe posting well behind the lines. Fortunately, his role is comparatively small and it's his movie wife, well-played by little-known Anabel Shaw, who takes center stage. Also on hand in the femme department is Lynn Bari (here cast as Price's even more villainous assistant), and some great character actors including John Davidson giving the best performance of his entire career as a berserk mental patient. Admittedly, noirish lighting helps, but Davidson's sequence is really chilling. He takes the spotlight right off Vincent Price who seems just a bit too relaxed at times with a murder conviction staring him in the face. Oddly, a good print of this movie is available on numerous bottom-price DVDs. Presumably, 20th Century Fox forgot to renew their copyright and the movie fell into the public domain.

Made before Vincent Price would become famous as a horror movie actor in the 1950's, "Shock" is a suspense movie, not a thriller and certainly not a horror movie. Price played Dr. Richard Cross, a psychiatrist who has just murdered his wife. Unbeknownst to him, Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw) witnessed the murder from a neighbouring room but falls into a state of shock because of it - and is sent to Cross's sanitarium for treatment!The question that hovers over the movie is how far Cross is willing to go to cover up his crime. At first, it seems as if simply convincing everyone (including Janet herself) that she's hallucinating and is having delusions will work. Cross managed to dump his wife's body in such a way that everyone thought her death was accidental, and so there seems no threat. As the evidence as to how she died mounts, though, Janet becomes a greater danger to Cross and his lover, Miss Jordan (Lynn Bari.) Finally, it seems as if the only way to save himself will be for Cross to kill Janet. The question is whether he'll go through with it - and whether he'll be stopped.Once that final plot twist arrives, and Janet's life is put very much at stake, this does become fairly suspenseful. Up until that point, though, the suspense was somewhat lacking. It's a well-written movie and Price, Shaw and Bari were quite good in their roles. Price especially did a pretty good job portraying the doctor, tormented between his desire to get away with his crime, but also by the thought of having to kill a patient to do it. If the suspense had been more consistent throughout the movie rather than largely restricted to the last few scenes, this would probably be ranked higher, because overall the story is pretty good. (5/10)