Behind Locked Doors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Behind Locked Doors

DVD cover from the Kino Video release
Directed by Budd Boetticher
Produced by Eugene Ling
Written by Eugene Ling (story and screenplay)
Malvin Wald (screenplay)
Starring Lucille Bremer
Richard Carlson
Douglas Fowley
Distributed by Eagle-Lion Films Inc.
Release date(s) September 3, 1948 (U.S. release)
Running time 62 min
Language English
IMDb profile

Behind Locked Doors is a 1948 black-and-white B-movie starring Lucille Bremer. The movie, directed by Budd Boetticher, runs a scant 62 minutes. The film also stars Richard Carlson and features Tor Johnson (uncredited) as 'The Champ'. Like many films noir, the lighting is used creatively to hide some cheap sets and other signs of a low movie budget.

[edit] Plot

A private detective goes undercover in an asylum in search of a judge who is hiding out from the police. The detective was hired by a pretty reporter that's sure that the judge is hiding out in the private sanitarium. The reporter and P.I. begin to fall in love as well as falling more and more into danger from abusive attendants and other guests of the asylum. Other inmates include an arsonist patient and 'The Champ,' a man who attacks anyone put into a room with him.

Reviews for the movie when released on DVD in 2002 were mixed. Keith Phipps, writing for the Onion AV Club, found that they don't make B-movies like they used to. He wrote this of Behind Locked Doors: "A probable inspiration for Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor, Doors suffers in comparison; Fuller made transcendent B-movies, and this isn't one. In just about every other respect, however, it's everything it should be: fast-paced, stylishly shot, a little lurid, a little topical, and thoroughly entertaining." When asked about the similarity of his film's story to the earlier film, director Sam Fuller pointed out that both scripts were based on a newspaper incident in the 1940s (Fuller had been a newspaper reporter at the time.)

[edit] References

[edit] External links