Shock (1946 film)
6.2 /10 1 Votes6.2
Country United States | 6.3/10 Genre Film-Noir, Thriller Duration Language English | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Release date January 10, 1946 (1946-01-10) (United States) Film series 20th Century Fox Film Noir Cast (Dr. Richard Cross), (Nurse Elaine Jordan), (Lt. Paul Stewart), Anabel Shaw (Mrs. Janet Stewart), (Dr. Stevens (as Michael Dunne)), (District Attorney O'Neill)Similar movies The Big Sleep , The Asphalt Jungle , Detour , They Live by Night , The Third Man , Notorious |
Shock is a 1946 American film noir directed by Alfred L. Werker and starring Vincent Price, Lynn Bari and Frank Latimore.
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Shock 1946 vincent price film noir thriller
Plot

A psychiatrist, Dr. Cross (Vincent Price), is treating a young woman, Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw), who is in a coma-state, brought on when she heard loud arguing, went to her window and saw a man strike his wife with a candlestick and kill her. Lynn Bari is Dr. Cross's nurse/lover, Elaine Jordan.

As Stewart comes out of her shock, she recognizes Dr. Cross as the killer. He then takes her to his sanitarium and at Elaine's urging, gives Janet an overdose of insulin under the pretense of administering insulin shock therapy. He can't bring himself to murder her in cold blood, though, and asks Elaine to get the medicine to save her. Elaine refuses, they argue, and he strangles her. A colleague of Dr. Cross, Dr. Harvey, saves Janet's life and Dr. Cross is taken into custody by a lawyer from the District Attorney's office.
Cast

Production

The film was originally to be directed by Henry Hathaway.
Reception

Above and beyond the typical characteristics of the horror film genre, reviewer Bosley Crowther of The New York Times took particular offense to the film's treatment of Price as a psychiatrist who attempts to do away with his patient, a woman who has lost her mind after witnessing the murder her own doctor had committed. Coming in the wake of World War II, in which so many people had suffered shock and could benefit from treatment of their anxieties, Crowther asked the "critical observer to protest in no uncertain tones" the movie's "social disservice" in its fostering "apprehension against the treatment of nervous disorders", deploring the lack of consideration for those in need of treatment evidenced by producer Aubrey Schenck and distributor Twentieth Century-Fox. Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times took no such offense, calling the film a "nominal 'B' feature", which screenplay author "Eugene Ling and Director Alfred Werker have imbued... with a grade-A suspense". Jonathan Malcolm Lampley wrote in Women in the Horror Films of Vincent Price that his role in this film "foreshadows the mad doctors and scientists Price would frequently portray in his later career".



References
Shock (1946 film) WikipediaShock (1946 film) IMDbShock (1946 film) themoviedb.org