I like Black Panther, but I didn't like this movie.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

What a stroke of inspiration sticking 300-lb. monster Tor Johnson into this otherwise routine thriller. Just the scary thought of getting locked in the same cell with this punch drunk baldy (The Champ) makes the whole movie. Up to that point, nothing much happens as Carlson's PI goes undercover in a funny farm to find a missing judge. Too bad more time isn't spent with the inmates as they add real color to the otherwise colorless Carlson. That unexpected scream in the night, for example, sends a nightmarish chill, and should send Carlson to the nearest exit. Actually, the 60-minutes comes across like a prison picture, with a sadistic guard (Fowley), a compromised warden (Browne), and a vulnerable hero (Carlson). I wouldn't call the results noir (no ambiguous central character or spider woman), but the many foreboding shadows suggest noir. Still, I can't see anyone paying to enter such a grim institutional setting. But then this is the movies. All in all, it's an okay little flick, but director Boetticher did much better with westerns (and a bigger budget).

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

Summary: Excellent B Thriller about a Sinister Sadistic AsylumThis 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!

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.