Shock is a 1946 film noir directed by Alfred L. Werker.

Plot[link]

The film tells the story of a psychiatrist, Dr. Cross (Vincent Price), who is treating a young woman, Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw), who is in a coma-state, brought on when she heard loud arguing, went to her window and saw a man strike his wife with a candlestick and kill her. It also stars Lynn Bari as Dr. Cross's nurse/lover, Elaine Jordan.

As Stewart comes out of her shock, she recognizes Dr. Cross as the killer. He then takes her to his sanitarium and at Elaine's urging, gives Janet an overdose of insulin under the pretense of administering insulin shock therapy. He can't bring himself to murder her in cold blood, though, and asks Elaine to get the medicine to save her. Elaine refuses, they argue, and he strangles her. A colleague of Dr. Cross, Dr. Harvey, saves Janet's life and Dr. Cross is taken into custody by a lawyer from the District Attorney's office.

Critical reaction[link]

Above and beyond the typical characteristics of the horror film genre, reviewer Bosley Crowther of The New York Times took particular offense to the film's treatment of Price as a psychiatrist who attempts to do away with his patient, a woman who has lost her mind after witnessing the murder her own doctor had committed. Coming in the wake of World War II, in which so may people had suffered shock and could benefit from treatment of their anxieties, Crowther asked the "critical observer to protest in no uncertain tones" the movie's "social disservice" in its fostering "apprehension against the treatment of nervous disorders", deploring the lack of consideration for those in need of treatment evidenced by producer Aubrey Schenck and distributor Twentieth-Century Fox.^[1]

Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times took no such offense, calling the film a "nominal 'B' feature", which screenplay author "Eugene Ling and Director Alfred Werker have imbued... with a grade-A suspense".^[2]

Cast[link]

• Vincent Price as Dr. Richard Cross
• Lynn Bari as Elaine Jordan
• Frank Latimore as Lt. Paul Stewart
• Anabel Shaw as Janet Stewart
• Stephen Dunne as Dr. Stevens
• Reed Hadley as O'Neill
• Renee Carson as Mrs. Hatfield
• Charles Trowbridge as Dr. Franklin Harvey

See also[link]

• List of American films of 1946
• List of films in the public domain

References[link]

External links[link]

• Shock at the Internet Movie Database.
• Shock is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
• Shock at AllRovi.
• Shock at the TCM Movie Database.