Samuel Fuller

Shock Corridor

Shock Corridor

In Shock Corridor, the great American writer-director-producer Samuel Fuller masterfully charts the uneasy terrain between sanity and madness. Seeking a Pulitzer Prize, reporter Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) has himself committed to a mental hospital to investigate a murder. As he closes in on the killer, insanity closes in on him. Constance Towers costars as Johnny’s coolheaded stripper girlfriend. With its startling commentary on racism and other hot-button issues in sixties America and its daring photography by Stanley Cortez, Shock Corridor has had far-reaching influence.

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Film Info

  • United States
  • 1963
  • 101 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.75:1
  • English
  • Spine #19

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New video interview with star Constance Towers by film historian and filmmaker Charles Dennis
  • The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera, Adam Simon’s 1996 documentary on director Samuel Fuller
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: Illustrations by cartoonist Daniel Clowes and a new essay by critic and poet Robert Polito and excerpts from Fuller’s autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking

New cover by Daniel Clowes

Purchase Options

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
  • New video interview with star Constance Towers by film historian and filmmaker Charles Dennis
  • The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera, Adam Simon’s 1996 documentary on director Samuel Fuller
  • Original theatrical trailer
  • English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • PLUS: Illustrations by cartoonist Daniel Clowes and a new essay by critic and poet Robert Polito and excerpts from Fuller’s autobiography, A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting, and Filmmaking

New cover by Daniel Clowes

Shock Corridor
Cast
Peter Breck
Johnny Barrett
Constance Towers
Cathy
Gene Evans
Boden
James Best
Stuart
Hari Rhodes
Trent
Larry Tucker
Pagliacci
Paul Dubov
Dr. Menkin
Chuck Roberson
Wilkes
Neyle Morrow
Psycho
John Matthews
Dr. Cristo
William Zuckert
Swanee
John Craig
Lloyd
Philip Ahn
Dr. Fong
Frank Gerstle
Police lieutenant
Credits
Director
Samuel Fuller
Produced and written by
Samuel Fuller
Color sequences photographed by
Samuel Fuller
Choreography
Jon Gregory
Costumer
Einar H. Bourman
Art director
Eugène Lourié
Film editor
Jerome Thoms
Director of photography
Stanley Cortez, A.S.C.
Music
Paul Dunlap
A production of
Leon Fromkess
A production of
Sam Firks

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Explore

Samuel Fuller

Writer, Producer, Director

Samuel Fuller
Samuel Fuller

Crime reporter, freelance journalist, pulp novelist, screenwriter, World War II infantryman—Samuel Fuller was a jack of all trades before the high-school dropout directed his first film at age thirty-six. But once he was contacted by Poverty Row producer Robert L. Lippert, a fan of his writing, Fuller was turned on to cinema—his true calling. A singularly audacious visionary of the B-movie variety, Fuller would make muscular, minuscule pictures, starting with the one-two-three punch of I Shot Jesse James, The Baron of Arizona, and The Steel Helmet—the last a raw Korean War saga that was one of the few films of the period to address racism in America. Soon after, Fuller was scooped up by Twentieth Century Fox, but he was able to maintain his purposefully crude, elegantly stripped-down style and teeth-bared cynicism for such studio efforts as Fixed Bayonets! and Pickup on South Street. Eventually, Fuller returned to independent filmmaking, and in the sixties (after his artistic cred had been given a shot in the arm by the French New Wavers’ embrace of him as a major stylistic influence), he directed two of his most acclaimed titles, the pulpy and profound Shock Corridor and The Naked Kiss, both corrosive satires of American culture. Even in his career’s twilight, Fuller didn’t shy away from controversy: his early eighties social horror film White Dog was shelved by the studio for more than a decade due to its provocative, bloody investigation of American racism.

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