New film #2
Shock is a 1946 film noir starring Vincent Price, Lynn Bari, Frank Latimore and Anabel Shaw and directed by Alfred Werker.
Alanbel Shaw's character witnesses a murder and becomes distraught. The perpetrator (Vincent Price) happens to be a doctor, and he covers up the murder by having her committed to a sanitarium.
I thought this was a terrific idea for a movie, and ended up enjoying it quite a bit. It's by no means an amazing picture, but it is a solid, dependable way to kill an hour (well, seventy minutes). There's nothing that stands out as being particularly excellent, but it's suspenseful and generally well made. It has a much larger budget than the last movie I reviewed, but it still firmly sits in b picture territory.
The film was made before Vincent Price became known for b horror pictures, and he does an excellent job. On one hand, he comes off as being wonderfully evil. On the other hand, you get the feeling that he has a lot of remorse. All in all, both sides of him work towards a great performance.
Lynn Bari plays a nurse and Price's girlfriend. Throughout then movie, she pushes him to do things so that they both can get away, and she's fairly convincing at it. I wouldn't really say that she's as good as Price in this movie, but she's very competent and right for the part.
Anabel shaw has an interesting part. Throughout the movie, she's psychological distraught over the murder. Honestly, it's a bit overacted (and at times, weirdly sexual). Throughout, she has a wide eyed look of either terror or vacancy.
Frank Latimore plays Shaw's husband who's just returned from war. He seems pretty concerned about her, but again, it's not a particularly remarkable performance.
I'd be hard pressed to differentiate the soundtrack of this film from that of any other 1940s film noir. However, the sound is plenty crisp and clear.
It's shot and lit pretty well. I love classic noir 3 point lighting, and this is a fine example of it. There's also a scene towards the start with some weird distortion going on. I'd like to know how this was accomplished.
I hate to call this movie "so-so", because I actually really enjoyed it and would recommend it to fans of the genre. However, I'm going to give it the so-so rating of:
5/10