Let's be realistic.

Lack of good storyline.

From my favorite movies..

Excellent adaptation.

Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw) arrives in San Francisco to meet her recently freed POW husband Paul (Frank Latimore). With his arrival delayed, Janet spends the night alone in the hotel and is woken up around 1am by a dream. In the apartment adjacent to hers she hears arguing between Dr. Richard Cross (Vincent Price) and his wife. She watches as he murders her and it puts her in a state of shock, so she is unresponsive when her husband finally arrives. The doc examining her recommends a preeminent psychiatrist who just happens to be...Dr. Cross! With Janet housed at his institute, Dr. Cross conspires with his lover/nurse Elaine (Lynn Bari) on how to be get rid of this witness.A excursion into video roulette led me to this fun little horror- thriller that might be one of the first REAR WINDOW-type stories for the screen. Director Alfred L. Werker does a good job of moving things along quickly (the film only runs 70 minutes) and scores best in terms of atmosphere on a rainy night at the sanitarium. The cast is fine all around. Price is very good in his role as the doctor who is very conflicted on what he has done/is doing and seems to be helpless against the will of femme fatal Elaine. It is funny to me to see a time where a doc will suggest all sorts of crazy things to try on a patient and the husband is full blown "whatever you need to do, doc!" The story was completely ripped off for an entry titled "Mute Witness to Murder" in William Gaines' "The Crypt of Terror" in 1950; it was later adapted for HBO's TALES FROM THE CRYPT with Patricia Clarkson in the lead female role and Richard Thomas as the crazed doc. John Boy, how could you!

Top-billed Vincent Price gives a characteristic performance in this well-directed (Alfred Werker) noir, filmed on a top budget ($375,000) by 20th Century Fox. True, eager-beaver Frank Latimore is somewhat miscast as a returned soldier. He seems too fresh-faced and innocent to have taken an active part in the army, unless he spent the war as a paper-shuffler in Washington or some other safe posting well behind the lines. Fortunately, his role is comparatively small and it's his movie wife, well-played by little-known Anabel Shaw, who takes center stage. Also on hand in the femme department is Lynn Bari (here cast as Price's even more villainous assistant), and some great character actors including John Davidson giving the best performance of his entire career as a berserk mental patient. Admittedly, noirish lighting helps, but Davidson's sequence is really chilling. He takes the spotlight right off Vincent Price who seems just a bit too relaxed at times with a murder conviction staring him in the face. Oddly, a good print of this movie is available on numerous bottom-price DVDs. Presumably, 20th Century Fox forgot to renew their copyright and the movie fell into the public domain.

Anabel Shaw (Janet) gets thrown into some kind of zombie-like state after witnessing a murder. She is transferred to Vincent Price's (Dr Cross) psychiatric institution to 'recover' only recovery for her is the last thing on Price's mind. Both he and nurse Lynn Bari (Elaine) have been conducting an affair and the murder that Shaw witnessed was Price murdering his wife. And Price knows that she saw. Bari isn't too keen on having this witness around either. The film follows their attempts to prevent Shaw from telling the truth. They need to keep her sedated.......or worse....The film starts interestingly enough as we follow a spooky dream sequence and witness the murder through the eyes of Anabel Shaw while she waits for her husband in a hotel room. Unfortunately, we then get a dumb contrast as we are asked to believe that Shaw becomes rendered permanently speechless and wide-eyed as a result. It's laughable. All credibility and sympathy that we may have had for her character is thrown out of the window as she demonstrates an incredibly soppy, weak personality. It's also a bit of an insult to viewers considering the time of war and the atrocities that people would have had to see on a daily basis. Yet this pathetic figure can't handle someone being knocked on the head. Honestly! Just for that, I watched the film urging both Price and Bari to finish her off and hopefully get away with it. Go on Price and Bari, do what you gotta do...!!...It's an OK film that never quite gathers momentum but Vincent Price and Lynn Bari are strong enough to carry the proceedings through to a rather messy and rushed finale.

According to the Films Of Vincent Price from the Citadel Film Series, sometime in late 1945 Darryl Zanuck was on one of his budget cutting kicks and was looking to produce cheaper films. Vincent Price was offered the story of Shock and liked it and said he could get it done under 20 days with no interference. Zanuck gave him his head on this one and Price and director Alfred Werker brought it in 19 days shooting time. Shock was also the film that Vincent Price got top billing for the first time in his career. He plays a psychiatrist who kills his wife because she won't give him a divorce to marry the sultry Lynn Bari. The problem is that young war wife Anabel Shaw who is anxiously waiting the return of a husband who was thought missing in action in the Pacific sees him through the window of her room at the hotel they're both staying at. Shaw's got a lot of issues and she collapses and goes into Shock. It's recommended that she go to a sanitarium and husband Frank Latimore now returned takes her to a highly regarded one that is run by both Price and Bari. I don't think I have to go any further.Shock may have been done on a dime and in a hurry, but it's well constructed and was the film that opened new vistas for Vincent Price's career. Price elicits a lot of audience sympathy being caught by mantrap Lynn Bari. As for Bari I don't think she was ever sexier or more dangerous. Stronger men than Price might have killed for her.Definitely a must for the still strong legion of fans that Vincent Price has.