Shock (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Shock |
| Original title | Shock |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1946 |
| length | 67 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Alfred L. Worker |
| script | Eugene Ling |
| production | Aubrey Schenck |
| music | David Buttolph |
| camera |
Joseph MacDonald Glen MacWilliams |
| cut | Harmon Jones |
| occupation | |
| |
Shock is an American thriller written in 1945 by Alfred L. Werker with Vincent Price and Lynn Bari in the lead role.
action
Janet Shaw arrived at her hotel in San Francisco late and was very desperate not to be able to get a room after telegraphing one of the orders. She is expecting her husband, who has been thought dead for two years, who is returning home from military service. The hotel manager arranges a room for Janet for at least one night. Janet's sleep is very restless the next night, she has nightmares and visions. When she wakes up, it's still night. She thinks she can hear Paul's voice calling for her. But Paul still hasn't arrived. Janet goes to a window and sees and hears a couple arguing across the street. Obviously this man, Dr. Richard Cross, divorced his counterpart, his wife Margaret, because he loves his lover Elaine more than she does. Finally, the man kills his wife with a candlestick after she threatened to inform the press and ruin him socially. From then on, Janet Stewart is in a state of shock, which does not change when husband Paul finally arrives in her room.
The hotel doctor feels overwhelmed and asks the psychiatrist Dr. Cross to look at the patient - the same psychiatrist across the street. He noted a nervous breakdown which led Janet to a comatose paralysis. Cross soon finds out what the reason for her condition is and offers Paul to transfer his wife to his special sanatorium for treatment. There he asks the patient, who is still half in a trance, what she saw and experienced last night. Cross wants to know if she can testify to his wife's murder. A little later, nurse Elaine Jordan enters the room, the same lover Cross spoke of on the night of the murder. Cross tells her that the patient saw Margaret's killing. Dr. Cross is now trying to plant in Janet's subconscious that all of this she had seen never happened. When Janet regains consciousness, she recognizes Dr. Cross the wife murderer and loudly announces this. Now Elaine urges her lover to solve the problem by killing Janet too.
Meanwhile, Margaret's body is found shattered on a cliff, and an accident is recorded. Cross and his lover now believe that they are safe and that Janet's statement can no longer change anything. Janet again accuses Cross of killing his wife, but Cross explains to Janet's slightly confused husband that such a reaction is not uncommon in a mentally unstable woman in her condition and presents the lieutenant with another (but this time demented) woman who is constantly accused someone of murder. She is paranoid, explains Dr. Cross the confused Paul. Cross tells Mrs. Stewart that she is wrong about the dead wife and that she is delusional. With a newspaper report he proves that he could not have murdered his wife. When an Inspector O'Neill requests the exhumation of Margaret from the police , Dr. Cross restless. Now he worries that Mrs. Stewart might cause him trouble after all. Cross thinks he has found the solution to the problem: He wants to give Janet Stewart four injections of insulin that are supposed to trigger a shock , allegedly medically indicated . This is actually intentional in this treatment, but the fourth injection would probably be fatal.
Dr. Cross still has qualms about committing a second murder. His lover Elaine is different: she encourages him to finally act. O'Neill stops by Cross one evening and tells him that Margaret's exhumation revealed that she was beaten to death with a candlestick, as was another woman who was recently murdered by a tramp. The next day, Paul Stewart gives his consent to his wife being treated with insulin. While the insulin shock therapy starts, Paul reads in the newspaper that the murder weapon, the silver candlestick, has been found. Now he believes that his wife is not fantasizing, but is right with her statement. Ltnt. Stewart goes to Dr. Harvey, the old teacher and colleague of Dr. Cross, who briefly examined the patient shortly after she was admitted to the clinic, and tells him his suspicions. Both men drive to the clinic, where Dr. Cross already wants to use the fatal fourth insulin injection. Elaine urges her lover to finally give Janet the fatal injection, but Cross hesitates again. When he tries to take countermeasures to save Janet's life, Elaine intervenes. A fight ensues in which Cross strangles his beloved. Dr. Harvey appears and injects adrenaline into Janet to save her life. Cross goes to his doctor's room and tapes his final steps. Inspector O'Neill arrives. He now knows that Dr. Cross is the wife's murderer and arrests him.
Production notes
Shock premiered on January 10, 1946 in the United States. The film never ran in Germany, but was released on DVD in 2009.
The film structures were created by Lyle Wheeler and Boris Leven , with Thomas K. Little responsible for the equipment . Kay Nelson designed the costumes . Emil Newman took over the musical direction .
The film cost around $ 350,000 and grossed about $ 800,000. Shock was thus considered a commercial success.
Reviews
The Movie & Video Guide stated: "Fascinating premise, result so so-so".
"Well-done staged B-movie."
Halliwell's Film Guide said that the "flat handle ruins a good tension situation".
Individual evidence
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1177
- ↑ Shock in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on October 7, 2018
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 913
Web links
- Review in the New York Times
- Shock in the Internet Movie Database (English)