Some six years ago when I was living in Istanbul I made friends with a cinephile. He was an American obsessed with the Turkish pop culture of the 1960s and made his living writing articles on the subject and teaching English. As it turned out, he knew a great deal about movies too. All kinds of movies. When I was finally invited to his apartment to watch a couple of flicks I was bombarded with unkempt shelves full of films and books – so much so that the apartment was quite difficult to navigate. Turkish film posters from the 1960s covered the walls. A film junkie’s paradise.
One of the films we watched that day was SHOCK CORRIDOR. Needless to say, I liked the film, but I wasn’t thoroughly impressed; not like I was the second feature of the day: BURIAL GROUND (1981). As the years went by however, I would come across random discussions on SHOCK CORRIDOR’s relevance to both cinema and American culture. And how could I forget the way that cinephile introduced me to the film in the first place - like it was a forgotten treasure that only an elite few had the privilege to watch.
SHOCK CORRIDOR tells the story of Johnny Barrett; a fame obsessed newspaper reporter bent on winning the Pulitzer Prize. With the co-operation of his staff and reluctant girlfriend, he schemes to have himself committed to a mental hospital in order to investigate a murder.
Widely seen as just-your-average B-movie upon its release, Sam Fuller cleverly takes this simple premise and creates an allegory for American society during the 1960s. Exploring the topics of xenophobia, racism and nuclear war, Fuller successfully compares 60's America to an insane asylum.
What struck me most this time around was just how fresh and relevant the film felt. Having recently undergone the horrendous witch fires here in California, I made a daring observation. A local news reporter (Channel 8/CBS) took it upon himself to report the burning of his own home. Initially I felt a great deal of sorrow for his loss, but then you start thinking, if that had been my home, would I be reporting it live on television for everyone to see? No. Then the reporter starts showing up on national news programs. He’d gone big time. He was seen as a trooper within the media for never putting the camera down; even during a time of personal crisis. Could it be that he was looking for his own Pulitzer Prize? An Emmy perhaps?
