Shock *** (1946, Vincent Price, Lynn Bari, Frank Latimore, Anabel Shaw) – Classic Movie Review 7,257

Vincent Price stars as a psychopathic psychiatrist whose new patient saw him kill his wife, in the creepy, enjoyable 1946 film noir thriller Shock.

Director Alfred L Werker’s enjoyable, creepy 1946 film noir thriller Shock sees Vincent Price grabbing his new top-lined billing as the psychopathic psychiatrist Dr Richard Cross who has recently acquired Mrs Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw) as a patient suffering from memory blackouts, admitted to his private sanitarium.

She had seen Price dispose of his wife in a hotel room, killing her with a candlestick after an argument. Egged on by his lover Nurse Elaine Jordan (Lynn Bari), Dr Cross plans to murder Janet. Can her cop husband Lieutenant Paul Stewart (Frank Latimore) rescue her? What is going to happen next? It is tense and involving, leaving you dying to know the outcome.

Shock is very neat and nifty the-spider-and-the-fly B-movie stuff, with Price doing what he always does best. Naturally, it is not to be taken at all seriously, of course, at least by the audience, but it is good that Werker, Price and the cast take it properly seriously. It is Vincent Price’s show, but sultry, statuesque villainess Bari steps out of the shadows and gives him a good run for his money.

Also in the cast are Michael Dunne [Stephen Dunne] as Dr Stevens, Reed Hadley as the District Attorney O’Neill, Renée Carson as the Head Nurse Mrs Hatfield, Charles Trowbridge as Dr Franklin Harvey, John Davidson, Selmer Jackson, Pierre Watkin, Mary Young, Charles Tannen, George E Stone, Robert Adler, Harry Carter, Claire Richards, Cecil Weston, and Ruth Clifford.

Shock is directed by Alfred L Werker, runs 70 minutes, is released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Eugene Ling (screenplay) and Martin Berkeley (additional dialogue), from a story by Albert DeMond, is shot in black and white by Glen MacWilliams and Joe MacDonald, is produced by Aubrey Schenck, and is scored by David Buttolph, with Art Direction by Boris Leven and Lyle R Wheeler.

Release date: February 1, 1946.

It was profitable, taking $800,000 against a budget of $350,000.

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film’s copyright has resulted in it falling into the public domain.

So Shock is available for free download at the Internet Archive:

https://archive.org/details/shock

Lynn Bari (born Marjorie Schuyler Fisher; December 18, 1919 – November 20, 1989)

Lynn Bari recalled: ‘I seem to be a woman always with a gun in her purse. I’m terrified of guns. I go from one set to the other shooting people and stealing husbands!’

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7,257

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