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11 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Short but sure-fire old dark asylum thriller from Budd Boetticher, 16 February 2003
7/10
Author: bmacv from Western New York

In the noir cycle, if you were looking for sinister skulduggery, you needn't have searched any farther than the closest mental institution. Creepy snake-pits were the setting, in whole or in part, of (just to name a few) Strange Illusion, Spellbound, Shock, The High Wall and Shock Corridor. But maybe the scariest asylum of them all was La Siesta, in Oscar (later, Budd) Boetticher's Behind Locked Doors.

You'd have to be crazy to go there, because while its name promises cozy afternoon naps, what it delivers is apt to be the big sleep. Private eye Richard Carlson doesn't want to go either, but he up and falls for a reporter (Lucille Bremer) who persuades him to do the inside legwork on a story she was after. (A corrupt judge has vanished, and his girlfriend has been making nocturnal visits to La Siesta, where she's ushered in through a side door.) So they fool a doctor in giving Carlson a diagnosis of manic depression, and he becomes an inmate.

Inside, Carlson uncovers a web of secrets and lies, enforced by sadistic attendant Douglas Fowley with the help, as a last resort, of a punch-drunk prizefighter who's kept in a cage-like cell (Tor Johnson, who also graced Plan 9 From Outer Space). The intrigue centers around the judge, who's paying off the head of the hospital to hide him. But, when suspicions are raised by a deliberate act of arson, Carlson becomes the top item on the hit list....

At barely more than an hour, the movie doesn't have any time to waste, so Boetticher moves at a pretty fast clip (only the ending seems rushed). He lays on the shadows, too, with characters ominously silhouetted against walls and doors. More of an old dark house story, really, than a more freighted and ambiguous noir, Behind Locked Doors sets its sights modestly but achieves them handily.

Note: The plot summary of this movie in the `bible' – Silver and Ward's Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style – is hopelessly garbled, as though two different films had become confused.

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8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
Tough and Gritty But Not Always Plausible, 7 June 2006
7/10
Author: David (Handlinghandel) from NY, NY

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.

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9 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
62 minutes of superb film making, 5 December 2000
6/10
Author: Jay Harris (sirbossman6969@yahoo.com) from United States

This little b movie , made for next to nothing has more suspense & interest than most of todays so called big films we were completley enthralled especially by Lucille Bremer. a very beautiful actress who had too short a career

see this little gem

Jay Harris

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Works Pretty Well, 20 July 2001
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

This works pretty well for a B-grade film noir. The atmosphere is mostly convincing, and the story is interesting, even if not always entirely plausible. It has some creative touches and some moments of real tension that make up for the routine leading characters and the occasional lack of believability.

The story opens with a reporter visiting the office of an inexperienced private investigator (Richard Carlson), with a proposition. The reporter believes that she knows where to find a prominent judge who has become a fugitive from the police (and for whom there is a $10,000 reward). She thinks that the judge is hiding in a private sanitarium, and wants the investigator to pretend to be insane so that he can get inside and find out. Most of the story that follows takes place inside the asylum, as the investigator tries to find the judge and stay out of danger.

The asylum setting is done well, and furnishes a suitable atmosphere. They use the setting in several ways to further the action, most notably with horror-film favorite Tor Johnson appearing as a dangerous inmate, along with a number of other strange inhabitants. The unusual setting adds considerably to the more routine aspects of the film.

"Human Gorilla" (also called "Behind Locked Doors") works rather well, and this is not a bad movie to check out if you like film noir or crime movies, and wouldn't mind the generally low production values.

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6 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
Interesting grade B thriller, 19 April 2003
6/10
Author: Dennis Littrell (dalittrell@yahoo.com) from SoCal

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)

It seems like everything done in black and white in the forties, unless there was some singing and dancing in it, is now a film noir. (Well, excluding Olivier's 1949 Hamlet, I suppose.) When this "Poverty Row" production came out in 1948 I'm sure it was billed as a mystery/suspense tale, but never mind. "Film noir" is now a growth industry.

There's a gumshoe, Ross Stewart played by Richard Carlson, whom I recall most indelibly as Herbert A. Philbrick of TV's cold war espionage series "I Led Three Lives" from the fifties when HUAC had us all looking under our beds for commies. Lucille Bremer, near the end (which was also near the beginning) of a very modest filmland career, co-stars as Kathy Lawrence, a newspaper woman with a story idea. She needs a private eye to do the investigative dirty work.

Ross Stewart has just hung out his gumshoe shingle and had the frosted glass door of his office lettered and is paying the painter when Kathy Lawrence shows up. (I love all the private eye movies which begin with the dame showing up at the PI's office needing help. So logical, so correct; so like a noir "Once upon a time.") She wants him to pretend to be insane so that she can get him committed to a private sanitarium where she believes a corrupted judge is hiding, thus the locked doors in the title.

What I liked about this is the way the low-budget production meshed with the gloomy and aptly named "La Siesta Sanitarium," the scenes shot in rather dim light giving everything a kind of shady appearance. The story itself and the direction by Oscar "Budd" Boetticher defines "pedestrian," but there is a curious and authentic period piece feel to the movie that can't be faked. Postmodern directors wanting to capture late-forties, early fifties L.A. atmosphere would do well to take a look at this tidy 62-minute production.

Tor Johnson, the original "hulk" (perhaps) plays a dim-witted but violent punch drunk ex-fighter who is locked in a padded cell. He comes to life when the fire extinguisher outside his door is sadistically "rung" by one of the attendants with his keys, thereby springing the hulk into shadow boxing imaginary opponents. Could it be that he will get a live one later on...?

See this for Richard Carlson who made a fine living half a century ago playing the lead or supporting roles in a slew of low budget mystery, horror and sci fi pictures, most notably perhaps The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
This hospital makes the one from "One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest" look like paradise!, 29 June 2011
9/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

There was only one reason I sought out this low-budget noir film--it was directed by Budd Boetticher--a man known for squeezing a lot out of low budgets and simple scripts. And, boy, did this film deliver! This film stars Lucille Bremer and Richard Carlson--not exactly household names today. Bremer's most famous role was the oldest daughter in "Meet Me in St. Louis" and Carlson played many mostly anonymous leading or supporting roles in mostly secondary films but is a name few remember today.

Bremer plays a reporter who is looking for a judge who is on the lam from the law. Her leads suggest he might be hiding in a sanitarium but getting in to find him is a problem. So, he pays a detective (Carlson) to pretend to be insane and get himself admitted to the place in order to prove her theory. A bit implausible but an interesting idea for a film--especially as you wonder what awaits Carlson.

Once Carlson is admitted to the place, it's pretty obvious that the staff is amazingly cruel or indifferent towards the patients. Patients are routinely beaten and the place is dreadful. You also get to see that the Judge IS hiding out there--but not in a part of the hospital that Carlson has access to, so through much of the film he's unsure about this. So, he tries repeatedly to sneak into the locked unit but to no avail. Will he be able to find the fugitive or will he lose his mind instead?! Or will he be discovered?! The film is a lot like the Olivia DeHavilland film, "The Snake Pit"--but this asylum is run by sociopaths who are worse than any of the residents of the place! And, it's also VERY exciting and I am shocked the film is pretty much forgotten today, as it's an excellent noir thriller.

By the way, the child star Dickie Moore appears in a small role as a mute patient. It's a far cry from his starring roles in the 1930s. Also, Tor Johnson (from "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "The Beast of Yucca Flats" and other cheesy films) makes a small appearance as a violent maniac kept locked in a cell throughout the movie--or at least most of the movie.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
He Must Have Been Crazy To Take A Job Like That!, 30 April 2011
6/10
Author: oldblackandwhite from North Texas sticks (see all my reviews)

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 maybe 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.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
If you enjoy B-movie Forties noirs (and even if you don't), better remember to duck when you meet The Champ, 8 January 2009
7/10
Author: Terrell-4 from San Antonio, Texas

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

If you like Forties B-movies -- especially Forties B-movie noirs -- Behind Locked Doors might bring a contented smile to your face. It's no more than what it is, but the plot is an old reliable one and director Budd Boetticer keeps things moving. Once more we have a man who places himself in a prison, in this case a private sanitarium for the mentally ill, to get the goods on crime and finds it's a lot harder to get out than it was to get in.

Ross Stewart (Richard Carlson), a wisecracking private eye who likes dames and dollars, lets himself be recruited by Kathy Lawrence (Lucille Bremer), a stylish newspaper reporter with the San Francisco Tribune, to get the goods on Finlay Drake. He's a crooked judge on the lam and she's traced him, she thinks, to the La Siesta Sanatorium, a private institution for mental cases run by Dr. Clifford Porter. She can't prove it unless she can get someone inside to locate the judge. So Stewart becomes Harry Horton, a manic-depressive husband, who is admitted to La Siesta.

Does he find the judge? Well, sure. But he also finds that Dr. Porter is as corrupt as the judge, the warder in charge is a sadistic bully, and upstairs in the lock-down ward is a very big guy called The Champ, who beats anyone he can reach when he hears a bell. When the bad guys realize who Harry Horton really is, it's likely the only way Ross Stewart is going to leave La Siesta is feet first. Steward has only three things going for him. A friendly warder, the determination of Kathy Lawrence to not just get her story but to rescue Stewart, and Stewart's own ingenuity.

Now bear in mind that Richard Carlson may not be the most persuasive actor to play a private eye. In this case, the dialogue is snappy most of the time, with some romantic bantering between Steward and Lawrence. Carlson had skill and, in my opinion, was best in lightweight roles. The dialogue helps make him attractive and believable. Top billed but playing second lead is Lucille Bremer, an accomplished dancer but not so good an actor. Probably through no fault of hers, her screen personality left the impression of a reserved and chilly woman. She registers here only because of the trajectory of her Hollywood career: Four years only, with that glossy MGM grooming to start with, two big MGM musicals (Meet Me in St. Louis, a hit, and, co-starring with Fred Astaire, Yolanda and the Thief, a flop) specialty dances in two more MGM high-gloss movies, and then quick loan-outs for four B movies. And that was that. She retired right after Behind Locked Doors, married a millionaire from Mexico, had four kids and a divorce, in that order. To see Richard Carlson at his goofiest, watch him in Too Many Girls. To see Lucille Bremer at her dancing best, watch her in Ziegfeld Follies with Astaire doing "Limehouse Blues" and "This Heart of Mine."

Behind Locked Doors has two other good points. First is the effective cinematography. Most of the movie takes place in the sanitarium. It might look cheerful by day, but at night, with all those shadows cast by moonlight, it's definitely not a healthy place to be stuck in. And there are all those in the cast whose faces we remember but almost always can't place where we saw them. Among the many is Thomas Brown Henry as the doctor. I doubt if there was a cheap science fiction movie in the Fifties that he wasn't in. And there's Douglas Fowley as Larson, the warder with thick glasses and round shoulders. Larson likes to hit the patients with his heavy ring of keys, or hit a fire extinguisher so it rings outside the door of The Champ, sending the poor lump into a frenzy of punching. Better yet is putting another patient into the room with The Champ, then hitting the extinguisher. Larson likes watching the result. It's a mild satisfaction to see someone like Fowley being a really bad guy, and then remembering him playing the exasperated, frustrated and funny Roscoe Dexter, trying to direct Lina Lamont in Singin' in the Rain.

All this in just 62 minutes.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Excellent B Thriller about a Sinister Sadistic Asylum, 27 August 2008
7/10
Author: robert-temple-1 from United Kingdom

Summary: Excellent B Thriller about a Sinister Sadistic Asylum

This is a very good zero-budget B thriller about a sadistic mental asylum. A corrupt judge who was meant to be sent to jail is on the run and hiding out in this asylum, which is run by a corrupt crony of his. So Lucille Bremer (in her last film) decides to try to collect the $10,000 reward for his capture by the police. She approaches Richard Carlson, a handsome and engaging private dick on his very first case, with the proposition that they split the reward if he will pretend to be her husband and be a manic depressive, and get himself committed to the asylum, which he does. But things go wrong! The asylum is a sadistic and criminal institution, and Carlson now cannot get out. Everybody's worst nightmare! The judge is hiding in the locked ward adjoining the violent psycho cases. One of these is 'the Champ', a psychotic former boxer who still thinks he is in the ring and wants to punch everybody to death, hence has to be kept in a locked ward. He never speaks and is wonderfully played by Tor Johnson, with such a mournful, tormented expression, glassy eyes, and as if totally stoned. No prizes for guessing that someone might end up locked in with him! Things get really sticky, and Lucille who is on the outside has to figure out some way to help Carlson who is on the inside, and time is running out. What can be done? I won't tell!

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2 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Pretty good B movie, 18 August 2008
7/10
Author: blanche-2 from United States

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.

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