Behind Locked Doors (1948)

good back-story, and good acting

An absolute waste of money

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Behind Locked Doors is directed by Budd Boetticher and has a screenplay by Malvin Wald and Eugene Ling, the film stars Richard Carlson and Lucille Bremer.Ross Stewart(Richard Carlson)is a private investigator who's hired by reporter Kathy Lawrence(Lucille Bremer)to find a corrupt judge. Kathy believes the judge is being hidden at a local sanatorium, she asks Ross to pretend to be a manic depressive and they'll pretend to be married so she can ask for doctors help and get him admitted to the sanatorium. Once inside it's hoped he can locate the judge. Once inside he faces the danger of really going insane and not being discovered.This is a very good Noir that deserves a great deal more attention. The plot with him going undercover in the sanatorium is interesting, there is real emotional and psychological risk there and it makes for some really tense moments. Carlson and Bremer are both very good.

Move along, there is nothing to see here. This was a completely forgettable film that takes place entirely inside a sadistic sanitarium. Now at first that may sound promising but with boring characters and ridiculous situations you will soon find yourself losing interest in this short b-movie. This film stars Richard Carlson who also featured in "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." Do you remember his standout performance in that classic? Yeah, me neither. The directer Oscar Boetticher, would go on to direct many successful Westerns, but only after he changed his name to Bud. Apparently his new studio never bothered to Google him.

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.

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.