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Shock Corridor - Criterion Collection
 
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Shock Corridor - Criterion Collection (1963)

Starring: Peter Breck, Constance Towers Director: Samuel Fuller Rating: Unrated Format: DVD
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)

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  • This item: Shock Corridor - Criterion Collection DVD ~ Peter Breck

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Product Details

  • Actors: Peter Breck, Constance Towers, Gene Evans, James Best, Hari Rhodes
  • Directors: Samuel Fuller
  • Format: Black & White, Color, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language: English (Dolby Digital 1.0)
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Rating: Unrated
  • Studio: Criterion
  • DVD Release Date: August 26, 1998
  • Run Time: 101 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: 0780021096
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #33,878 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

    Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

    #12 in  Movies & TV > Cult Movies > Cult Directors > Fuller, Samuel
    #25 in  Movies & TV > Cult Movies > Drama
  • For more information about "Shock Corridor - Criterion Collection" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Maverick film director Samuel Fuller was doing some of his best work in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and in the years since its release in 1963, Shock Corridor has become a B-movie classic and a prime example of Fuller's gritty tabloid style. Never hesitant to explore the darkened corners of contemporary life, Fuller depicts the chambers of an insane asylum as a microcosm of American society, telling the story of a cynical, ambitious journalist (Peter Breck) whose obsessive quest for a Pulitzer Prize leads him into the depths of madness. To investigate a murder, the reporter goes undercover in a mental hospital, having convinced a psychiatrist that he needs treatment. Once inside the asylum, he pieces together clues to the murder, but his own mind begins to deteriorate until he's trapped in a downward spiral towards insanity. Fuller heightens the melodrama with his aggressive style of filmmaking (his next film, The Naked Kiss, proved even more effective), and his imaginative use of black-and-white cinematography (by noted cameraman Stanley Cortez) fills the movie with raw, emotional power. It's the kind of film one would expect from a rebellious director on the Hollywood fringe, and that's why Shock Corridor remains an enduring low-budget examination of the "rat race" and the consequences of pursuing success at any cost. The Criterion Collection DVD presents the film in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and a rarely seen color dream sequence has been fully restored. --Jeff Shannon


Product Description

Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, a reporter has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, madness closes in on him. Writer/director/producer Samuel Fuller masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and dementia. Criterion is proud to present Shock Corridor in a gorgeous, black and white widescreen transfer with its rarely-seen color sequences.

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36 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (36 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great American Original, July 8, 1999
By A Customer
Perhaps Fuller's most audacious film--the first time I saw it, my jaw was on the ground. Some take it only as a cult item, but when you realize this was made in 1963 as an indictment of Cold War paranoia and homegrown racism, you begin to appreciate exactly how ahead of the curve Sam was. While Sam Fuller's films may not be for everyone (such as the previous reviewer), there's nothing cheesy about this at all. True, Shock Corridor is very low budget. But it also has Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons) behind the camera. If it's so inept, why did John Ford often visit the set, saying he might learn something? Why did Jean-Luc Godard pay hommage to Fuller in many of his early films, even using him in Pierrot le Fou to deliver his definition of cinema ("A film is like a battleground--love, hate, action, violence, death...in one word--emotion!")? Why has Martin Scorsese (along with Quentin Tarentino and others) called Shock Corridor is "a masterpiece"? No, when such an array of talented people find so much of worth here, then you know this is far from Ed Wood territory. Experience Sam Fuller's "Kino-Fist" style right between your eyes--he may be one of our most neglected directors.
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fuller's strange world, December 31, 2001
By LGwriter "SharpWitGuy" (Astoria, N.Y. United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
Alternately brilliant and infuriating, Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor is without question a one-of-a-kind film. Shot in black and white in 1963, it tells the story of a newspaper reporter who's convinced he can win the Pulitzer Prize if only he can penetrate the inner sanctum of a mental hospital to solve a murder that's been committed there--something the police have apparently not been able to accomplish.

The bizarre juxtaposition of intensity and immaturity, anger and pulp, outrageousness and illogic tells you that this is the work of a film maker who's not afraid to take chances. Fuller seems to be deliberately trying to rattle or irritate the viewer: a stripper sings a slow torch song and only partially disrobes, a nuclear physicist prattles like a six year old, a 300 pound man sings the same opera aria repeatedly to awaken another man. It's not hard to tell that the dialogue is defiantly pulpy, with emphasis on "defiant". Fuller was obviously enraged with the more destructive qualities of American culture and let his audience know it in no uncertain terms.

But with the pulp--and how much more pulpy can you get than the reporter's girlfriend being a stripper?--there's also startling power. A war veteran relates his dreams of living with South American primitives, brought shockingly to life with a rare color sequence. A black man spouts virulent anti-black racial epithets and dons a makeshift KKK hood, chasing another black man down a hallway. The reporter himself wonders why, at crucial moments, he's unable to speak.

A scathing attack on the relentless American drive for success, power, and acceptance, this movie, for all its frequently dated, semi-trashy dialogue, ranks as one of the best films of its time or any period in American history. The ruthless, downbeat ending--the murderer is discovered, but at a terrible price--is a fitting, bitter conclusion.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A DISTURBING MOVIE..., October 20, 2002
A reporter seeking a Pulitzer Prize cons his way into being committed to an asylum to get the story on an unsolved murder case. Peter Breck (from TV's "The Big Valley") is good as the reporter. He blends in with the other male inmates trying to ferret out the facts but discovers insanity is nothing to toy with. Constance Towers (also in Fullers' "The Naked Kiss") is a stripper and his loyal girlfriend who notices Breck's mental deterioration on her visits. She tries but can't get him out. He has more or less sealed his own fate. The portrayals of the other inmates are powerful and there are some real doozies locked in with Breck. But I found the movie to be so vivid that it was almost unpleasant to watch. The scenes in the asylum are disturbing. The scenes outside the asylum are depressing and even Towers' strip routine at the nite club where she works is downbeat. Breck's plight is overwhelmingly doomed. This is without a doubt a challenging film but I can only recommend it with a warning. If you are emotionally affected by films be careful with this one. It will linger with you after you've seen it. Still it's a powerful and unusual film worthy of a cult following and a collector's item.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Shockingly Schlockingly
I checked this movie out of my local public library simply because it was so highly recommended by various professional film reviewers.

Ho boy! Read more
Published 1 month ago by Salvatore Rossellini

4.0 out of 5 stars Who Killed Sloan in the Kitchen?
Samuel Fuller's 1963 feature Shock Corridor is an example of Fulkler's pure pulp melodrama that works as well today as it did on first release. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Bryan A. Pfleeger

3.0 out of 5 stars Hit and miss
Director Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor is one of those wildly aberrant works of art than can be called great, on some levels, and utter schlock, on other levels. Read more
Published 14 months ago by Cosmoetica

2.0 out of 5 stars Not nearly as good as I was led to believe.
Shock Corridor (Samuel Fuller, 1963)

With all the hefty heaps of praise that have been lavished on Shock Corridor during the past decade, as Sam Fuller's films have... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Robert P. Beveridge

4.0 out of 5 stars SAMUEL FULLER, OPUS 16
**** 1963. Written and directed by Samuel Fuller. Larry Tucker earned a Golden Globe nomination for his performance as Pagliacci, the overweight witness of the Stuart murder... Read more
Published 19 months ago by wdanthemanw

5.0 out of 5 stars Jaw-Dropping Hysterics...in the film AND in your living room
Ambitious journalist Peter Breck lusts after a Pulitzer Prize or, at the very least, "a book, a play, even a movie sale. Read more
Published on August 16, 2007 by the masked reviewer

5.0 out of 5 stars one of the greatest looney bin movies
Years before 'one flew over the cukoo' nest' sam fuller made perhaps the strongest film against the horrors of the mental hospital and shock treatment in particular.. Read more
Published on June 29, 2007 by Stalwart Kreinblaster

5.0 out of 5 stars Cinematic subversion disguised as Grade B exploitation
I'm not sure I understand how anyone could come away from Fuller's "Shock Corridor" without thinking about the film for quite awhile, and also feeling very uncomfortable. Read more
Published on August 28, 2006 by J from NY

4.0 out of 5 stars Still shocking in it's core
Having watched "Shock corridor" recently, it left me with mixed feelings. Some of the elements in this movie about a journalist who fakes mental illness to get himself committed... Read more
Published on July 4, 2006 by yorgos dalman

5.0 out of 5 stars A VISCERAL DESCENT INTO MADNESS
FIRST THOUGHTS: THE TRAILER MAY BE ALL THE "SHOCK CORRIDOR" YOU'LL NEED

Before viewing this film for the first time I carefully viewed the Trailer that Criterion... Read more
Published on April 21, 2006 by Heather L. Parisi

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