Shock (1946)

Moral Of The Story: Don't Get Romantically Involved With Vincent Price

"Shock" is a stark and creepy piece of moody melodrama from 1946, starring the wonderful Vincent Price as a psychiatrist caught in a snare of his own making.

The film opens with a young woman checking into a San Francisco hotel to meet her husband who is finally home from the war. While waiting she sees a man in an adjacent room kill his wife in a fit of rage. The woman promptly goes into shock. When the young soldier gets to the hotel, he finds his wife with wide eyes and unable to communicate. He rings for a doctor who refers the case to an eminent psychiatrist who happens to be the murderer.

Price admits her to his private sanitarium and sedates her while conditioning her to believe that what she saw was a figment of her imagination. He almost succeeds with the help of his mistress, but the soldier is very persistent in trying to help his wife. He enlists the help of another psychiatrist who, with the help of the police, is able to free the fragile, sedated wife. In the end Price also loses his temper with his mistress, and is ultimately led off to meet justice.

Certainly parts of the film are a bit contrived, but the acting is quite good, the script is tight (the film is only 70 minutes long), and the high-contrast black and white photography is excellent. My only complaint about the film is that the soundtrack is a bit muddled, and a few lines of dialogue are a bit difficult to understand.

This is an excellent example of mid 1940s film production, and I recommend it. August 30, 2008

Worth Watching

This is an excellent movie and well done. A young woman waiting in a hotel room for her husband (away at War, and whom she has not seen in a very long time), witnesses a murder in the room opposite. Reminiscent of "Rear Window". She goes into shock and that is the way her husband finds her when he arrives. The hotel calls a famous psychiatrist for help, the very man who his wife witnessed murdering a woman. The psychiatrist takes charge, whisking her away to his asylum and keeping her husband from her. Filled with suspense and with elements that seem Hitchkockian. May 31, 2008

Not Film Noir

Film noir sells. As a product category and a genre (in real world, rather than academic, terms) it possibly outsells all others except new releases. So, if movie companies can possibly package a product under a noir imprimatur, you bet they're going to do it, because it will maximize sales.

Meanwhile, movie critics and academics specializing in film noir are complicit in the matter since they've classified far too many movies as film noir, and spun rather farfetched, tortuously worded theories to support their aggrandizing notions.

As it happens, "Shock" is a rather tawdry thriller-horror film that has nothing to do with film noir, but which, nevertheless, is interesting if not terribly effective. It may become somewhat more compelling in your mind if you remind yourself that a real life medical monster was active and running around the country during this period, promoting his new procedure: pre-frontal lobotomy, which he performed quickly and often rather casually using ice picks. It would have been very interesting had Hollywood decided to produce a bio-pic of Dr. Walter Freeman, and chosen Vincent Price to play the leading role.
February 22, 2008

fantastic VINCENT PRICE

this B movie became a A movie whit vincente price in the movie!
the plot is also great! the video transfer is very good also the audio commentary absolutely hilarious December 2, 2007

Stop starting series!

I really wish DVD companies will stop starting series like Fox Film Noir
and then abandon the concept midway.
"Shock" is a good addition to the series. But then Fox abruptly stopped it.
Shame on you, Fox. March 12, 2007

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