Shock Corridor

Admission is free. No advance reservations. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. The box office opens one hour before the event.

Preservation funding provided by The Film Foundation and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association

Shock Corridor

U.S., 1963

In this anti-message film scorcher, hard-boiled writer-director Samuel Fuller incinerates Hollywood earnestness while delivering a devastating diagnosis of the multiple psychoses—racism, sexual repression, political paranoia—at the heart of American society. A former journalist himself, Fuller transforms the crusading reporter—the message film’s most recurrent paragon of virtue—into a careerist huckster (Peter Brock) whose ostensible exposé of a corrupt mental institution is just another stepping stone to fame. Working undercover as a patient, he pieces together the clues to a murder from his fellow inmates, a veritable parade of sociological delusions. Fuller goes to such innovative lengths to represent their maladies, including found footage color inserts throughout, that the film itself can feel dangerously unhinged.

35mm, b&w and color, 101 min. Director: Samuel Fuller. Screenwriter: Samuel Fuller. With: Peter Breck, Constance Towers, Gene Evans.

Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Please note: This film contains offensive language.

Learn more(opens in a new tab)