More Schlock than ‘Shock Treatment’ 1964

 

Stuart Whitman stars in 1964's "Shock Treatment." Whitman reminds me of a young
 Colin Farrell here, in this tawdry thriller set in a sanitarium.  

Shock Treatment is one of those “all-star cast in cinema confinement” flicks! Usually presented as pulling back the curtain on what really goes on behind prison/sanitarium bars, movies like this were really an excuse to depict lurid sex and violence. There's often someone in the clink or cuckoo’s nest that isn't really guilty or crazy. The roll call of stereotypes goes something like this: the lead who’s either been framed or has ulterior motives to get inside; the gorgeous young woman who's either frigid or a nympho; the child-like lunatic; the Blanche DuBois type, living in delusions of grandeur; the seemingly normal patient who turns on a dime; and the tough female in charge. This one lacks the idealistic young man or woman who tries to change things, since Shock Treatment is more of a suspense movie than an expose of the system. 

***Spoiler alert of this film's plot cliches ahead!***

Roddy McDowall played the boyishly sensitive pyscho as many times as Anthony Perkins. Roddy is Martin, the gaga gardener who knows where the money's hidden!

Roddy McDowall is Martin, the maniac man-child. Roddy always seemed in a contest with Anthony Perkins to see who could play the most quirky neurotics. It’s amusing that Martin was let out of the asylum, where he uses one of his gardening tools on his witchy employer, and when he’s sent back for decapitating her, guess his therapy of choice—gardening!

Stuart Whitman plays a thea-tah actor hired to act crazy and get sent to a sanitarium. 
Why? To find out where a real crazy hid a million dollars, in "Shock Treatment."

Stuart Whitman is the hotshot actor, Dale Nelson, who breaks into the sanitarium, pretends he's crazy, and then can't get out! Nelson is hired by the decapitated dowager’s estate lawyer to find out where Martin hid her money. Whitman’s antics to convince as crazy would suggest that his character studied acting at the William Shatner School of Dramatic Arts.

Whitman's actor pretends to be a flower expert to get on McDowall's
insane gardener's good side, in 1964's "Shock Treatment."

Whitman looks a lot older than 36, especially opposite china doll Carol Lynley, 22 at the time. Roddy McDowall was the same age as Whitman, but he still looked quite boyish. Stuart Whitman also reminded me a lot of Colin Farrell. Roddy and Stuart’s characters bond at the sanitarium over flowers, after an initial war of the roses. Carol Lynley is her usual wan, doll-like self as Cynthia, the neurotic/nympho. Of course, despite being a man with a mission in a nuthouse, Whitman’s character still finds time to pursue Lynley’s hot and cold miss.

Though Carol Lynley's Cynthia is diagnosed as bi-polar, Whitman's Dale pursues her.
 Perhaps the challenge of romancing a woman who's both frigid AND a nympho?

Lauren Bacall is the Nurse Ratched type, Dr. Edwina Beighley, who goes from coolly efficient to cuckoo. The doctor takes Martin back not because she cares about his well-being, but because she wants to know where’s the money. Yes, Bacall’s Edwina goes off her nut when she finds out her financial scheme about Martin was all for naught. Let’s just say that the doctor’s dreams for research big bucks ends up as burnt offerings!

Guess who's running this joint? Lauren Bacall as brisk Dr. Beighley
in 1964's "Shock Treatment." 

Bacalls’s Edwina gets led away from the scene of the crime like Kate Hepburn’s Violet Venable in Suddenly, Last Summer. The same courtroom staff has to endure another nut who wants to plead their own case. Bacall’s delusional doc defends herself ala Bogie’s Captain Queeg, ranting and slapping desktops!

Lauren Bacall's doctor's dreams of financial security have literally gone up in smoke,
in 1964's "Shock Treatment."

The final scene is a hoot, with Betty bitching to herself about the billing hours, while the other patients look on, and stars Whitman and Lynley leaving the cuckoo’s nest, viewed on the other side of the fence. I love Bacall’s constant billing bitch:  “Thirty one separate hours!”

Love the side-eye that Olive Deering gives Lauren Bacall, as her now-demented
doctor rehashes her neuroses ad nauseum! Note Carol Lynley & Stuart Whitman
getting the hell out of this nuthouse & nutty movie! And what sanitarium movie
would be complete without a patient pretending a doll is her baby?

 Betty was not enough of an actress to go beyond her pragmatic, snarky persona, though it's amusing to watch her try. Let’s just say this wasn’t the “High Point” of Bacall’s career. Shock Treatment is very cartoonish, yet watchable, but most definitely a decaffeinated thriller!

Were Stuart Whitman, Roddy McDowall, & Ossie Davis trying to look optimistic about the box office chances of 1964's "Shock Treatment?"

The photography by Sam Leavitt is excellent, almost noir-like. His work ran from I Love Lucy to Anatomy of a Murder, and he won three Oscar nominations. And Jerry Goldsmith’s score adds to the scariness.

At least over-acting Stuart Whitman looks better with his shirt off than
William Shatner, in 1964's "Shock Treatment."

The resulting quality of Shock Treatment is not the fault of the cast, as they are given clichés to play but do their best. The film’s script is horrible, a glorified “B” movie, bolstered by the stars and production values.

Check out Lauren Bacall in another sanitarium cinema effort, where she’s an art therapist in 1955’s The Cobweb here:  https://ricksrealreel.blogspot.com/2019/01/its-curtains-for-cobweb-1955.html

That's much stronger stuff than "High Point" in Dr. Lauren Bacall's hypodermic,
in 1964's "Shock Treatment."

 

 

 

‘Revenge!’ Shelley Winters Style! 1971

Shelley Winters made her TV movie debut in 1971, with the suspense tale "Revenge!"

As a '70s child, I lived for these lurid "grown-up" TV movies!

Revenge! was Shelley Winters first TV movie, which ABC aired Nov. 6, 1971. However, Winters was on a roll with her manic mama roles by then, what with Wild in the Streets, The Mad Room, Bloody Mama, and What's the Matter With Helen? And there would be much more “crazy” to come! 

As Amanda Hilton, a deranged mother who seeks retribution for her daughter’s suicide, Winters is mostly restrained in the early scenes, until her character becomes completely unhinged when her plane for revenge goes awry. I wonder if the premise inspired Stephen King with Misery: A middle-aged woman holds an urban man captive for a perceived wrong and unless he recants, she's going to do increasing bodily harm to him. 

In this case, Winters' maniac mama is convinced that business man Frank Klaner (Bradford Dillman) seduced her daughter at a convention. She later became pregnant and the mother claims he rejected her, leading to her suicide. Now, she wants him to confess his sins to her... or else.

Imagine being shackled in a basement cell, with nobody but a bonkers Shelley Winters
 for company! That's Bradford Dillman's plight in "Revenge!"

While Klaner's missing, his wife Dianne (Carol Rossen) recruits psychic Mark Hembric (Stuart Whitman) to help find him. Also, the wife has a bit of a psychic gift herself. While they team up, the clock is ticking, as Shelley's increasingly crazed mama is plotting not so sweet revenge!

Joseph Stefano’s (Psycho) screenplay has an intriguingly ambiguous feel to the story and characters. Is the businessman innocent? How strong is the Klaners’ marriage? The psychic claims to be a con, but is he? And is Shelley's Amanda looking for revenge or just someone to assign blame?

Bradford Dillman, as the businessman whose briefcase has been swiped and swapped, has convincingly played both good and bad guys in his career. Here, he seems quite earnest that it was some kind of mix up, blaming his fellow business buddy, who has a reputation as a practical joker and player. Did the pal swap names when he met this girl at the convention or not? Dillman gives an intense, naturalistic performance as the man on trial by fury with Judge Shelley. Bradford stands out as a contrast to Shelley's histrionics.

Bradford Dillman and Carol Rossen play a husband and wife separated when
Shelley Winters mad mama holds him hostage in "Revenge!"

Stuart Whitman is the psychic and he's his usual laconic, gruff self. There is an element of dry humor to his character’s possibly being a con man. I was surprised to read that Whitman was only 43 here. He looks quite shaggy, weathered, and raspy in Revenge! 

Stuart Whitman is the cynical psychic who could use a haircut, in "Revenge!"

Carol Rossen was not your typical Hollywood actress, especially for TV, but more like the type that was briefly in vogue in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, realistic looking and acting. As the concerned wife Dianne, Rossen seems like a real person in this traumatic situation, than acting as a personality or type. She makes the situation here more intriguing, no typical noble or hysterical TV movie wife here. 

Carol Rossen is the wife of the hostage husband in "Revenge!"
Here, Dianne gets a psychic ping from her husband's pen.

Then there’s Shelley Winters. While there are tip-offs that Shelley's Amanda is “off,” like her giving him the wrong address to her home, offering lurid details of the family manse, or wearing a hat suitable for a witch, yet Dillman’s Frank still enters her house. When she tries to stall him with instant coffee that will instantly knock him out, he gets impatient, so Winters gives him two lumps with a fire poker, instead. Their adversarial back and forth, once he's shackled in her basement, is the highlight of the movie.

Shelley Winters gives it her considerable all as the bereaved and disturbed mother in
1971's "Revenge!"

As the businessman and the bereaved mother become increasingly at odds, Winters character becomes ever-more agitated, giving Shelley some over-the-top moments that were her mid-career specialty. As the movie heads into the finale, Winters is so wound up, you’d think she was having an asthma attack!

A testament to Shelley Winters strength as an actress is that she makes you believe the far-fetched plotting. And despite the mother’s obvious insanity, you empathize with her character’s sorrow. The ending is a bit ambiguous, showing both Frank and his prankster pal in a photo with Winters’ daughter, on her fireplace mantel.

Bradford Dillman's businessman rescued in a nick of time, while Stuart Whitman
gets Shelley Winters under control, in "Revenge!" Carol Rossen is Dillman's wife.

The score, by Dominic Frontiere, is typical of its time, with its mix of dirge-like music and distorted choral voices, and still creepy. Some great camera work by John Alonzo, who worked both in film and television, is framed well. Alonzo lensed Harold and Maude the same year! Jud Taylor was an extremely prolific TV director, including multiple episodes of Star Trek, Then Came Bronson, and Love, American Style. That’s just to name a few.

TV movies like "Revenge!" were a perfect fit for reruns on the
afternoon movie shows I watched as a '70s teen.

Revenge! was one of those early ‘70s TV movies of the week that were pretty down and dirty, both in budget and running time. Still, these TV flicks offered veteran familiar faces and then-fresh ones, as well. And the more memorable small screen movies contained scenes that stuck in many baby boomers minds for decades after!

The image of Shelley Winters readying to ship her victim out creeped me out!
1971's "Revenge!"