Samuel Fuller: SHOCK CORRIDOR (1963)

“I am impotent…and I like it.” Psycho (Neyle Morrow)

Okay, it is time for me to confess: I don’t much like the films of Samuel Fuller. I don’t like war films, I don’t like films in which actors yell at each other most of the time, I don’t like films that veer towards misogyny, I don’t like films that have no likeable characters, and I don’t like films that are Republican in their politics. But we don’t have to like that which we find interesting, and I find Fuller interesting, very interesting. Furthermore, he is useful as a test case for the notion of the auteur. Arguably, Fuller is closer to film makers such as Roger Corman and Jack Arnold than he is to directors such as Arthur Penn or Mike Nichols. Fuller makes B movies, movies on the cheap. And, as I have said before, he makes “sensation films.” His themes flirt with taboos such as pedophilia, incest, insanity, exploitation, and miscegenation. He sets out to shock his viewers. His many references to high art and intellectual content – Euripides, Dickens, Hamlet, Freud, Il Pagliacci, etc. – might pass over the B movie audience. In other words, Fuller’s films are a mixture of the high and the low, of the pulps and highbrow references. But in the last analysis, Fuller’s name comes with Writer, Director, Producer credits much of the time.

What do we make of SHOCK CORRIDOR?
It contains the familiar Fuller touches:

Newspapers: the plot is quite simple. Johnny Barrett ((Peter Breck) is a reporter with visions of greatness. He plans to win a Pulitzer Prize by scooping the story of a murder that has taken place inside a mental hospital. In order to get the story and find the murderer, he plans to have himself committed as an inveterate sex offender, a man whose incestuous desire for his sister makes him dangerous. He goes into the hospital with the approval of his boss at the newspaper. The point has to do with the obsession of the reporter with fame and the willingness of the newspaper editor to use any means to get a sensational story – to sell papers. The bottom line is money and fame. Herein begins another of Fuller’s indictments of America.

America as insane: this theme is expressed fully in SHOCK CORRIDOR. “The movie's central symbol is the asylum's main corridor, ironically called "The Street" by the guard-like staff. You don't have to have the blues to see it's one lonely avenue. It's starkly clinical. Lined with hard, wooden park benches. Interrupted with big water heating units. The harsh lighting beats down over all, emphasizing the sense of black and white, sane and insane. There is no grey area of compromise or understanding. There are no plants, no hint of growth or life or nurturing. There is no art, no imagination, no meanings, no sign of intellectual curiosity. The Street is the centre of the asylum, and Fuller blatantly elevates it to represent Main Street, USA” (Rick McGrath).

Johnny meets three patients, witnesses to a murder, and these three patients constitute the spine of the film. They are America in all its ugliness, beauty, and contradictions. First is Stuart (James Best), the southerner who has been in Korea and a prisoner of the Communists. Before going to Korea, Stuart had been brainwashed by his family to think of his own country as corrupt and alien. He was ripe for brainwashing by the Communists. He serves his captors by brainwashing other American prisoners. Then he is brainwashed in reverse, and turns his back on the Communists. He returns to America where he finds that he is a pariah. He ends up in the metal hospital where he spends his time re-enacting the Civil War, the war that revealed a crucial split in American ideology. Unable to deal with the painful reality that his country is flawed, Stuart has retreated into psychosis.

Then we have Dr. Boden (Gene Evans). He has gone mad (note: MAD = mutually assured destruction, what will happen when a nuclear war breaks out), from working on nuclear arms projects. This is Fuller’s comment on the madness of the Cold War and its arms race. From working with the physics of nuclear equations, Dr. Boden has retreated to the mind of a six-year-old. He now doodles and draws portraits.

Finally, and most shockingly, we have Trent (Hari Rhodes) who presents a cogent and brutal comment on race relations in America during the era of Civil Rights. This is the most painful and shocking episode in a shocking film. Before we see Trent, we hear him hollering from behind a large sign that castigates African Americans. The words we hear from behind the sign are ugly and racist. Fuller sets us up for a surprise when we see the sign lower to reveal behind it the face of a Black man. This is the person spouting words of hate and bigotry – and against his own people. Fuller’s America is so screwed up, so insane, that a Black man can turn against his own race. We later learn why this has happened. Trent was the first Black person to enter a Southern University (echoes of James Meredith in Mississippi). The pressures on him were so great that he flipped – literally- turning against the whole Civil Rights movement, and even thinking he has begun the Ku Klux Klan movement. He makes hoods from bed sheets, and he leads a mob against another Black person in the hospital. The vision of America here is angry. We are reminded of lynching and other racially motivated ugliness. At one point, Trent shows Johnny another patient who sits with his arm extended. Trent reaches behind Johnny and raises the extended arm in a gesture reminiscent of a Nazi salute; then he says the man is the Statue of Liberty. Statue of Liberty, Nazi salute – the connection is disturbing. The points seems to be both that American is fascist and that ‘Liberty” is a statue only, not a reality. Earlier in the film, in a scene in the newspaper office, we can see a front page of a newspaper framed and hanging on a wall. This front page announces the unveiling of the Statue of Liberty. Liberty is complicit with institutional power of overseeing, and this liberty results in madness.

The redeeming act: this film is pretty bleak. Unlike other Fuller films, this one does not contain what I would call a redeeming act. However, it does offer examples of redemptive possibility, the most powerful of which is the friendships that seems possible between Johnny and the three people he interviews. I might even add the relationship between Cathy and Johnny because of Cathy’s apparently deep feelings for Johnny. Love does not conquer all in Fuller’s world, but nevertheless it does exist. If we have a redeeming act in this film, then perhaps it is in the “sleep” scene. Remember the scene in which Il Pagliacci (Larry Tucker) feeds Johnny sticks of gum and encourages him to chew because if he chews enough he will get tired and sleep will follow. The scene has the feel of a father/child interaction in a strange Fullerian way.

Passion over reason: once again, Fuller’s characters are overwhelmed by their passions. Desire outweighs reason in Fuller’s characters. Obviously, Johnny’s desire for a Pulitzer Prize drives him beyond reason. Cathy’s desire for Johnny encourages her to go along with his half-baked plan. The patients in the hospital are insane because of either reason pushed into madness (the atomic work of Dr. Boden) or desire gone crazy (desire for a sense of belonging in Stuart). In the case of Trent, we have Enlightenment sentiment (“all men are created equal,” as the Declaration of Independence states) gone crazy. All men may be created equal if they have white skins and if they accept an ideology compatible with the American Dream. The most bizarre expression of desire gone mad is in the “Nympho” scene. Here Fuller’s misogyny surfaces in a scene that is supposed, I think, to say as much about Johnny as it does about the women. In a world gone mad, even sexuality goes crazy.

Fuller and sexuality: sexuality in Fuller is often connected to violence, either physical or mental violence. In SHOCK CORRIDOR, the focus of this theme is Johnny who is willing to put his fiancé through hell to get what he wants. His dreams, with the 14-inch and scantily-clad Cathy superimposed on his bed while he sleeps, inform us that he is obsessed with sex, but not in a very healthy way. Even his concocted story about sibling abuse suggests his kinky sexual attitudes. Is this guy too far removed from Grant in THE NAKED KISS? I don’t think so. His sexuality connects with his paranoia. And while I have this word paranoia here, I might note that Fuller’s sense of America is of a place redolent of paranoia. This is historically accurate since the 50s and 60s are deep with Cold War anxiety, fear of nuclear war, fear of infiltration by the Communists, fear of psychic breakdown in the American nation (remember Dr. Frederic Werthan and 1954’s Seduction of the Innocent). Fear is so great it may drive a person over the edge, as it does Johnny and many of the patients we meet. Before leaving the topic of sexuality, I might also note that Fuller connects sex with exploitation. Many of the women in his films are hookers or ex-hookers, or near hookers. Cathy in SHOCK CORRIDOR, for example, is an exotic dancer. She makes her living exposing her body to the male gaze.

The big symbol: the corridor itself. But also the shock treatments. This is a film that relentlessly takes us to inner space. The corridor is the corridor of the mind. The metaphor had appeared before in film, for example, in Hitchcock’s SPELLBOUND (1945). This is a shock corridor because it is a shocking space, a space where the id has free rein, although the warders try to contain it. In this corridor, Johnny’s unconscious begins to take over his conscious mind. The shock has to do with psychiatric treatment that uses electricity to jolt the patient. But we might also recall electricity and its uses in many Universal horror films (the most famous is FRANKENSTEIN 1931). In these films, electricity is supposed to bring life from lifelessness; it is a life force. But we also see that it creates monsters. Electricity generates wild and uncontrolled life – like fire. And so Johnny becomes more monstrous and incapable of functioning in “normal” society after his shock treatments. And then we have that audacious scene near the end when the corridor becomes infused with electricity and rain – a great thunderstorm of the mind.
War also turns up as a symbol. We know Fuller’s interest in war and life as a battlefield. In SHOCK CORRIDOR, the war metaphor is apparent in Stuart’s obsession with the American Civil War, and his desire to help General Lee. Life along the corridor is a battlefield, as the mob action when they turn on the Black patient indicates. We might also include Johnny’s experience with the sexually charged women – sex itself is a kind of warfare.

Lighting and camera work: we have the usual use of “noir” lighting (harsh lighting and “symbolic” shadows, the usual angled shots from above or below characters, the usual insistence on the close-up to intensify emotion (both the character’s and the viewer’s), and the usual superimposed shots and dissolves to help carry theme. The shots of Cathy on Johnny’s bed while he sleeps are typical Fuller sensation. Fuller’s style is often compared to that of cinema noir, and he does have his nourish moments – especially in films such as PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET and UNDERWORLD USA. Both THE NAKED KISS and SHOCK CORRIDOR show the influence of the expressionistic style of noir. But of course Fuller is not simply attempting to mimic a style we now associate with a “genre” called cinema noir. If this is how we judged him, then he would not score particularly well. But Fuller is Fuller – an auteur with his own strong vision. We may not like his vision, but it is discernibly his. His films register his unique sensibility. We might have difficulty knowing who directed films such as OUT OF THE PAST, THE BIG COMBO, THE RACKET, CROSSFIRE, or even THE POSTMAN ONLY RINGS TWICE – all examples of noir. Cinema noir does have a style that we can see in films by different directors. And yes, some directors who may be auteurs (Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang are the obvious ones) made noir films. But none of them made films like those of Samuel Fuller. Rather than focus on noir, I would choose expressionism as a foundation for Fuller’s films. The mise en scene of SHOCK CORRIDOR often echoes that of the most famous example of expressionism on film, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1919). I refer to those moments in the film in which we can see line drawings on the walls. Some of these drawings are representational (e.g. the drawing of Il Pagliacci above Pagliacci’s bed), and some are abstract. Although the echo to Caligari is faint, it is nevertheless clear. This is an environment that reflects the twisted minds of its inhabitants. A side note: Fuller’s invocation of Il Pagliacci serves to highlight the operatic excess of his film. Opera is, to a large extent, the art of excess. It deals with high passion and melodrama – the stuff of Fuller’s films.

Women: Cathy, Candy, Kelly – these three Fuller women are exploited by men. Each has had a checkered past. Each has a great capacity for love and self-sacrifice. Each has a certain toughness.

Murder: Fuller’s world is always fixated on death. Here the motivation for the plot is Johnny’s desire to expose a murderer. He accomplishes his mission, but to what end? The murderer confesses, but the detective goes insane. The connection is difficult to escape: murder is maddening. The murder here connects with the sexual theme in that the murderer, Wilkes (Chuck Roberson), committed the murder to cover up his sexual exploitation of the women patients. Sex – murder – death – insanity: these are connected. This is America. Perhaps the irony in all this has to do with Fuller’s casting. We know that Fuller had planned to make a film, TIGRERO, with John Wayne as star. Nothing came of this project except a late documentary using some of the colour film that we see in SHOCK CORRIDOR. In SHOCK CORRIDOR, the colour footage of Japan, of tribal activity, of nuclear explosions, serve to communicate the madness of Stuart, Trent, and Dr. Boden. The genius here is that the wild mental flights of the three madmen are in colour, whereas the reality of the hospital and of modern life is black and white. The colour footage from Brazil was shot by Fuller as preparation for TIGRERO; the colour footage of Japan comes from Fuller’s 1955 film, THE HOUSE OF BAMBOO. But when we reflect on the unusual casting of Chuck Roberson as Wilkes, we perhaps have a clue to Fuller’s full intent in SHOCK CORRIDOR. Chuck Roberson worked for Fuller as stunt coordinator on many films beginning with I SHOT JESSE JAMES (1949), but Roberson was also the long-time stunt double for John Wayne. Although he played bit parts in many films (often uncredited), Roberson was not an actor; he was first and foremost a stunt person. He had trained under Yakima Canutt, the Dean of stunt people. The viewer who knows who Chuck Roberson is knows that he raises the name John Wayne, and we know that by 1963 John Wayne was synonymous with American heroism. And so Fuller has Roberson play the murderer and exploiter. Is this Fuller’s comment on just how deeply corrupt America is? If I am right, then what I am suggesting is not that Fuller is anti-American. Far from it. He is quintessentially American in his desire to expose the insane aspects of corporate America, the America associated with corrupt institutions and fascistic heroism. He is the champion of independence, small business, the underdog and the oppressed. [Note: TIGRERO means ‘jaguar hunter.’]

Heroes: once again, we have a film without any clear hero. Fuller’s characters are, to a large extent, losers. They are, perhaps, impotent. Like the nation itself, these people have lots of bravado and even hardware, but these externals of competence mask internal dysfunction. Fuller’s vision is strongly influenced by his experience as a soldier in the Second World War, and this war did much to discredit a certain tradition of heroism. I refer to the notion of the Romantic hero, the strong man categorized by Nietzsche as the “superman.” Nazi Germany took this idea to its extreme. I am suggesting that Fuller critiques the notion of the hero in a manner not too distant from that of Hitchcock in the film ROPE. If heroes exist, then they are the dogged soldiers of THE BIG RED ONE, the pickpockets and hookers who survive in a dangerous world, the insane who are happy in their impotence, the children who may offer hope for a new generation..

Conclusion: Samuel Fuller is sometimes called an American original. Be this as it may, he is an auteur in that his signature is writ large over the films he made. Fuller’s films are consistent in style and theme. His vision of life as nasty, brutal, and short is clear. His filmic ideas are those of the tabloid journalist. His characters struggle to survive.