Film Noir Review: Behind Locked Doors

There is a subgenre of film noir that might be called "insane asylum noir," for the lack of a better term. You know the films where our hero enters a private mental hospital, and all sorts of nasty things befall him. So, I decided to check out this lurid 1948 B-film which runs a scant 63 minutes. Budd Boetticher directed it, and he went on to direct the better known Randolph Scott Westerns. Lucille Bremer playing a newspaper reporter, and Richard Carlson as the slick-talking private eye she hires to go into the nuthouse are the two stars. I must confess I'd never heard of either of them before. The only actor I recognized was the uncredited Tor Johnson who starred in a few Ed Wood movies. Tor plays a violent boxer who is beyond any treatment and is kept in the locked ward. Anyway, Carlson is searching for a corrupt judge who's laying low in the nuthouse. The $10,000 reward money for the judge's capture is what motivates our two protagonists to carry out their crazy caper. The acting is competent, and the story is entertaining enough. I read it was an inspiration for Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor which I haven't watched. IMDb.com rates Behind Locked Doors as 6.5/10.0, and I'd agree with that score. I saw the version on YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUoapa2lAZ4