Behind Locked Doors (1948)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Behind Locked Doors is directed by Oscar "Budd" Boetticher and written by Eugene Ling and Malvin Wald. It stars Richard Carlson, Lucille Bremer, Douglas Fowley, Ralf Harolde, Thomas Browne Henry, Herbert Heyes, Gwen Donovan and Tor Johnson. Music is by Irving Friedman and cinematography by Guy Roe.Private detective Ross Stewart (Carlson) is coerced into going undercover at the La Siesta Sanitarium in search of a corrupt judge that reporter Kathy Lawrence (Bremer) believes is hiding out there. Getting himself committed under the guise of being a manic depressive, Stewart finds more than he bargained for once inside the gloomy walls of the asylum.Clocking in at just over an hour in length, Behind Locked Doors is compact and devoid of any sort of flab. Firmly a "B" asylum based pot boiler of the kind film makers always find fascinating, it's a picture dripped thoroughly in noir style visuals. This not only pumps the story with atmosphere unbound, it also allows the economically adroit Boetticher to mask the low budget restrictions to make this look far better than it had any right to be.Cure or be killed!Narratively it's simple fare, undercover man uncovers sadistic humans entrusted to care for the mentally ill. The "inmates" are the usual roll call of the unfortunates, the criminally inclined or the outright hulking maniac. There's a good male nurse who we can hang our hopes on, we wonder if our intrepid protagonist will survive this perilous assignment, and of course there's a love interest added in to spice the human interest factor.Cast performances are effective for the material to hand, but without the said visual arrangements of Boetticher and Roe the characterisations would lack impact. The camera-work shifts appropriately with the various tonal flows of the story, angles and contrasts change and with the picture almost exclusively shot in low lights and shadows, the Sanitarium is consistently a foreboding place of fear and fret. And not even some rickety sets can alter the superb atmospherics on show. 7/10

That is, the private detective who agreed to pretend he was a nut case so he could get locked up in private loony bin where the pretty reporter who hired him suspects a corrupt judge on the lam from the law is hiding out. Only a beautiful dame and a healthy hunk of dough could entice a private eye to take on such a tough case. The dame was beautiful enough, if somewhat distant, and the ten thousand dollar reward was healthy enough. That's the plot of minor 1948 noir thriller Behind Locked Doors, and it works well enough in the hands of tough action specialist director Bud (billed Oscar) Boetticher. His taut direction, a tight script by Eugene Ling and Malvin Wald, and good work by the supporting cast, overcome low production values and lackluster leads.Richard Carlson, the detective, was a competent actor, but if somebody gave an award for the blandest leading man of all time, he would be in the running. Lucille Bremer, the beautiful reporter, was indeed beautiful, but she was undoubtedly at her best as a dancer (she could keep up with Fred Astaire!). As an actress, her talents were suspect. She is not even at her best in Behind Locked Doors. Since she was set to marry a millionaire and retire from the screen, it is likely that this, her last picture, was just fulfilling a contract obligation. It shows in her unenthusiastic performance. The obligatory romance between her and Carlson is sort of like a cigarette lighter with a used-up flint -- no spark. Lucille is more convincing when she's resisting his advances in the early going than when eliciting them in the later reels.No Matter. This is an action, suspense picture, and their is plenty of both. Solid support to prop up the flaccid leads is provided by Thomas Browne Henry as the troubled doctor in charge of the institution, Douglas Fowley as a sadistic warder, and the always interesting (in a bizarre way) Tor Johnson as a homicidal maniac. Shadowy cinematography by Guy Roe heightens the sinister mood of the story and no doubt at the same time covers up cheap sets. Boetticher's sharp direction keeps the pace snappy and the suspense taut with nary a wasted shot in this little 63 minute programmer.Take a gander at the poster pitching Behind Locked Doors. Beautiful Miss Bremer is pictured apparently swooned and lying limp and seductive while being carried by menacing hulk Tor Johnson. Nothing of the sort happens in this picture! Hollywood didn't invent the art of deceptive advertising -- surely it goes back at least as far as the early Roman Empire -- but the movie studios of Old Hollywood were certainly among its top exponents. Lurid and often sexy "promo shots" bearing little or no relation to the actual content of the picture were standard fare for movie posters of the era.Nevertheless, much does happen in a short time in Behind Locked Doors, much of it lurid, though none sexy -- except perhaps for those of the persuasion that gets a kick out of seeing a woman tied up. If you're looking for a short, filler type of movie, this well-made thriller will keep your attention for and hour and three minutes.

Richard Carlson goes "Behind Locked Doors" in this 1948 film also starring Lucille Bremer. Carlson plays detective Ross Stewart who enters an insane asylum as a patient at the behest of a reporter Kathy Lawrence (Bremer) to find a judge who is on the lam from the police. For his trouble, there is a $10,000 reward, which he and Lawrence will split, but she has to make sure the Judge is in the asylum first. They play man and wife, and she has him committed. Once inside, Stewart discovers that the place is run somewhat inhumanely, and that the judge may be in a ward of the asylum that is locked and inaccessible to other patients.This is a B movie all the way with decent performances by Carlson and Bremer, Douglas Fowley and Tor Johnson and good direction by Budd Boetticher. I sort of hoped that, although the Bremer character was on the trail of the judge, that she might have been interested in some of the bad conditions at the asylum and wanted to expose them. Though things don't stay as they are there, it would have been nice if earlier, she had mentioned having any interest in it. Guess she just wanted the big story.Good but not exceptional.

A nasty little noir by Budd Boetticher. The story involves a woman's hiring a struggling private detective to have himself committed to a private psychiatric hospital. A corrupt judge is holed up there.Richard Carlson is good, very good, as the main character. The supporting cast is excellent. It's a tough little story.Don't expect an expose like "The Snake Pit" or metaphor like "Shock Corridor." The sanitarium itself is one of the problems: Would a private sanitarium really have such sadistic, violent staff? It comes across much more like a state psychiatric hospital.Also, the rationale behind the woman's action is never really clear.However, it's a very scary movie, with no fat at all. The character's loss of his true identity once he's behind the doors is reminiscent of another small, though better, movie: "My Name Is Julia Ross." In passing, I wonder whether that movie, "When Strangers Marry," and the entire Republic noir catalog still exist. The first two are superb little movies that pack tremendous wallop. "Julia Ross," though atypical of the genre in many ways, may be my single favorite film noir. Where are these movies? And why don't we ever see the Republic noirs of the 1950s? That, however, is a digression. This movie is very well worth seeing. It's very tense and exciting and has fine character development.