User reviews

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

I am taken aback by all the 7s and 6s. This movie was practically perfect in every way. It doesn't follow the film noir tropes and instead has an original feel. This movie's run time if only 61 minutes which is a result of the story keeping a constant pace and expecting its audience to be smart enough to follow. Much like a Hitchcock movie, Behind Locked Doors has many subtle details and scenes that seem there for no apparent reason but will instead cleverly foreshadow events to come. In several scenes, Richard Carlson's character has short interactions with characters that don't seem relevant yet are there to progress either his character or to set up future events. This makes the movie flow so well. Richard Carlson plays his character brilliantly, adding wit and idiosyncrasies really making the character his own. He and Lucille Bremer have fantastic chemistry together. Each scene they are believable together. The dialogue is filled with wit and flirting which is something refreshing, seeing how most film noirs have the main characters attracted to each other very abruptly. Their relationship arcs beautifully throughout the movie. There are many other side characters, who, again, all have their own unique traits. All this makes this quite simple story really shine and be engaging to watch.

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.

Any movie with Tor can't be all bad and it isn't. Tor gets to do what he does best. Act menacing and remain mute. The main plot of the movie has to do with a female reporter convincing a private eye to go undercover into a sanitarium. Inside he finds abuse and corruption.

(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).

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.

A judge who has run afoul of the law has gone into hiding. Reporter Kathy Lawrence (Lucille Bremer) believes she has tracked the judge to a private sanitarium. She hires a private detective, Ross Stewart (Richard Carlson), to go undercover as a patient to help find the judge. Stewart quickly falls out of favor with one of the sanitarium attendants and puts himself in danger. Can they bust open the case before Stewart's cover is blown?

There's an amazing amount of entertainment stuffed into Behind Locked Doors' less than 62 minute runtime. Being brief, there's no time for filler. This is one quick, fast paced film. Even so, director Budd Boetticher was still able to give the film atmosphere - and I love atmosphere. The sanitarium setting, with the locked rooms upstairs housing the dangerous patients, provides the right amount of mystery. The cast is good - especially for a B-noir. Richard Carlson has always seemed like a very capable actor and does good work here. I wasn't at all familiar with Lucille Bremer, but she gives her reporter just the right amount of spunk. As good as they are, though, it's Douglas Fowley that really makes this film tick. He is the perfect, brutal advisory for our heroes. Finally, I got a little joy when I realized that Tor Johnson had a brief, but pivotal, role in Behind Locked Doors. He's as convincing as anyone in the film playing the dangerous, mute psycho. It's nice to see Tor is a "good" movie for a change. I'm sure I could pick apart the movie and write about plot holes and logic inconsistencies, but Behind Locked Doors is so entertaining that I had no problem looking past these issues.

An entertaining little item, if not with a very original plot line. It's a noirish low budget film starring Richard Carlson (THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON) as a private eye pretending to be mentally ill so he can be admitted to an asylum called "La Siesta Sanitarium". A woman reporter believes that a corrupt judge is hiding out there and wants Carlson to investigate. Naturally, once our hero gets inside it is revealed that despite its seemingly comforting name, this sanitarium is anything but warm and cozy with its underhanded coordinator and nasty attendants.

This is a very short (62 minutes) and tightly wound film that moves and is well photographed with shadowy detail. Carlson is quite good in it, and I spotted former Our Gang child star Dickie Moore as a patient. Also on hand is Tor Johnson as a hulking punch drunk inmate in a padded cell who goes into his wild boxing antics whenever sadistic guards taunt him by tapping bell-like ringing sounds from outside his cage! This film is sometimes known as THE HUMAN GORILLA, which was its reissue title. *** out of ****

Lucille Bremer is a reporter who hires private eye Richard Carlson to find a corrupt judge whom she suspects is hiding out at a local sanitarium. Bremer convinces Carlson to get himself committed so he can find the judge. Things do not go smoothly, of course.

Moving briskly along at just over 60 minutes, the film features excellent support from veteran bad guys Tom Browne Henry, as the head doctor at the sanitarium, and Douglas Fowley as his sadistic assistant. Tor Johnson plays a nutjob called "The Champ," who is kept in isolation. When Carlson is exposed, Fowley tosses him into the Champ's cell for a sparring lesson. Fowley takes fiendish delight in tor-menting Tor, yanking his chain by clanging metal to simulate a boxing ring bell. You know how this will end up for Fowley. Eventually, spunky Bremer helps save the day, by impersonating the judge's "ho" and brandishing a gun which she just happens to keep in the glove compartment of her car.

Kudos to Ralf Harolde, a veteran of several gangster films, for his sensitive portrayal of an assistant at the sanitarium who tries his best to help the inmates. In a subplot, we learn that his son, played by Dickie Moore, is one of the inmates.

Oh, and Tor is pretty good too, and scary as hell. The only thing scarier than Tor here is Tom Browne Henry's nose.

No need to give the plot away, and as this is a Budd Boetticher film it rates up there with his later stark and powerful Westerns. Everything is stripped away to the essential, and this is maybe a B Film to some, but it is anything but if you watch the sheer wonder of the way the camera is used sparing us nothing of what he as the director wants us to see. The boxer in the padded cell of the asylum in which the scenario is mainly set is just one example of minimum clutter and maximum force. Lucille Bremer is excellent and so is Richard Carlson, who gives one of his greatest performances as a private investigator. The climax of the film is something to see with everything falling into place, and it is made clear it is the madness of those who are outside the walls of asylums and hold the keys to them that control and hold sadistic power. My own criticism is that the ending is toned down a little, reminding me of the ending of Don Siegel's ' Invasion of the Body Snatchers '. In both of these powerful films a resolved ending seems almost out of place. Just to add that in the UK the film was banned and apparently still as as it has seemingly never been shown here or given a certificate after all these years. What exactly were the censors afraid of and why hasn't it made its way to DVD in the UK ?

The snag with this little pot-boiler is that you have to leave your sense of realism in the foyer. "Judge Drake" (Herbert Hayes) is wanted for questioning by the police, but they can't find him. Meantime, local journalist "Kathy Lawrence" (Lucille Bremer) has an inkling that he has sought refuge in a sanatorium. She engages the help of PI "Ross Stewart" (Richard Carlson) to impersonate an insane patient and establish whether, or not, the elusive judge is inside. Once there, he faces quite a few issues - not least from a particularly sadistic staff including nasty nurse "Larson" (Douglas Fowley) aided by the enormous, and instantly recognisable, Tor Johnson when muscle is required. The plot is just a bit too far-fetched and confused for my liking and it tries to cram so much into an hour that it does justice (if that's the word) to neither the story nor the characters; none of whom are particularly likeable.

Who would willingly get himself committed to an asylum to find out about some criminal hiding there under the protection of psychiatrists with the risk of never getting out again at least not alive? Well, Richard Carlson does for the sake of Lucille Bremer asking him to, and he very nearly doesn't get out alive. Fortunately at the asylum they are not all inhuman monsters, although the dominating lot all are, and there are some victims too. It so happens that the criminal hiding there in anonymity in the locked ward is a judge wanted by the police, but he has paid the asylum doctors handsomely for his protection. As always, what the criminals don't always count with is the human factor, and here the dirty business is ultimately saved by some double human factors, one of the wards actually being human and the worst ward at one time forgetting to lock a door carefully. You are in for a party at an asylum, but don't be sure that you will have the same luck to get out alive next time.

Ambitious reporter, Lucille Bremer engages the services of rookie private investigator, Richard Carlson, revealing a cunning plan to have him admitted to a private sanitarium, where she believes that corrupt ex judge and wanted felon, Herbert Heyes is in hiding.

Ushered into a spartan three bedder, Carlson encounters one patient who paints a bleak, stark picture of life within the walls and an 'activity' programme which is nothing more than menial, degrading skivvying. A man plagued by horrific night terrors completes the line up. Not until Manster's version of 'Over Under Sideways Down' would screams of such torturous, bloodcurdling intensity be heard again!

Cynical, sinister attendant, Douglas Fowley delights in taunting the residents. His chief target is confined and deranged ex boxer, Tor 'Plan 9' Johnson, upon whom he callously imposes his Pavlov's Dog, at the sound of the bell routine. Armed with the world's biggest bunch of keys, he randomly delivers a painful thwack to anyone who crosses him, being especially brutal towards a juvenile, who commits the heinous crime of tearing paper. Finally, here comes the judge and his puppet, Tom Brown Henry, the spineless quack who runs the joint.

An appreciable cut above the usual Poverty Row, low budget 'B' movie fodder. Almost every scene takes place in darkness, semi-darkness or bathed in shadow. 'Behind Locked Doors' occasionally raises a smile via a few oddball characters and acerbic one liners ''.... Celebrate by carrying you over the threshold?'' ''Oh no. It's such a nice day, I think I'll walk.'' Largely, it portrays a culture of cruelty, oppression and fear, being vented on vulnerable people in desperate need of care and support. As such, it makes the average prison movie look like 'Summer Holiday'. An early directorial triumph for Oscar? ? Boetticher, who hit his stride in the next decade with a number of superior westerns starring Randolph Scott.

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.