| Camp That Still Packs a Punch or Two |
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| written by talltale |
August 27, 2006 - 8:01 AM PDT |
Sam Fuller's SHOCK CORRIDOR doesn't hold up quite as well as his "Naked Kiss": a movie with Peter Breck in the lead just isn't as interesting as one with Constance Towers. (She's in this, too, but doesn't have much more to do than complain, cry and sing 'n dance a "strip" number as bizarre and asexual as anything in the history of burlesque.) But the movie still shows how this one-of-a-kind filmmaker could wrap his mind and camera around the most peculiar (for their time) topics and manage to create something entertaining, thought-provoking, sordid and silly.
Fuller's 1960s output experimented with techniques and ideas new to film at the time: the risk of messing around with Freud, pharmaceuticals and electroshock for the sake of journalism; the clever use of Towers' tiny figure appearing onscreen and in the mind of Peter Breck's character after his entry into the mental institution; a black man's taking on the personality and feelings of a white bigot (was this perhaps the first such scene in an American movie?). As so often, the problem with "firsts"--and particularly with Fuller--is that he hits you over the head with his newfound ideas rather than incorporating them into any kind of subtle art. But that doesn't make his ideas wrong.
In this film, the black character Trent's behavior is a much less subtle (but sadder and not nearly as pernicious) version of our Supreme Court's Clarence Thomas or Ohio's J. Kenneth Blackwell. The wonder of Fuller is that he was "on" to so many things so much earlier than most. And he had the balls to do something with his ideas and anger. I hope Criterion (or some company) manages to get every last one of his movies onto DVD eventually. I imagine we'll find a lot that's worthwhile--even in the least of them. |
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