Tuesday's Overlooked Films: SHOCK CORRIDOR Directed by Sam Fuller

This harrowing 1963 movie directed and written by Sam Fuller is about an ambitious journalist (Peter Breck) who wants in the worst way to land a Pulitzer Prize and catapult his career into the big leagues. He convinces his reluctant stripper girlfriend (Constance Towers) to pose as his sister and uses their trumped up incestuous relationship as his ticket to get committed to the mental hospital where a lurid murder has occurred. Of course, once he's locked inside the booby hatch, he becomes institutionalized, and things go downhill from that point. I can see how raw the material was in 1963, and even today it's unsettling to watch. Breck does a good job playing the journalist. One of the more unforgettable inmates is James Best, later to become the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the Dukes of Hazzard ("You dipstick!"). But this bleak movie is anything but humorous. Since it was made so late in 1963, I suppose it qualifies as neo-noir. At any rate, IMDb.com rates it 7.6/10.0 which is a high mark, and I'd agree with it.