Thursday, June 4, 2020

Shock (1946)

A neat and dark little psychological thriller. Janet (Anabel Shaw) arrives at a hotel to be reunited with her husband Paul (Frank Latimore) who has just been released from a PoW camp. While she waits she witnesses a murder and is hurled into a paralytic shock. Luckily noted psychiatrist Dr Cross (Vincent Price) is on hand and offers to take her to his sanatorium. Of course the reason he was on-hand was because he has just murdered of his wife...

Dr Cross and his lover Elaine (Lynn Bari) conspire to have Janet declared insane to make sure the truth does not come out. However when the law is starting to sniff around the case of Dr Cross' dead wife the doctor is persuaded by Elaine to kill Janet to silence her forever...

We don't see how the doctor managed to get away with killing his wife in a full hotel and getting rid of her body unseen which maybe stretches credibility a bit. The sanatorium is creepy, the air of suspense lies heavy over everything. The darkest character is Elaine who is able to wrap Dr Cross around her little finger and manipulate him into committing all sorts of foul deeds.