Bedlam (1946)

The baby boom. I was there. I dropped out on the earth like everyone else. And if I had been anything other than shortsighted and dumb, I would have called together all of my neighborhood kids and said: Let's make this movie! There are no characters in this move who are unfunny. There are no lines delivered that lack edge. Anna Lee insults people in this film in a way I wish every woman would learn. A torrent of verbal abuse, and though she has been dead these fourteen years, somehow I still want her riding my carcass and hurling the gift of her abuse my way.

So I gave this a watch this morning and see if Id be easily creeped out by it, however it just seemed very dull and confusing. I mean, if it was gonna be set at a mental hospital, they should've set it up as a mental hospital, not a 17th century like. OK at the beginning, we see a mental institution patient leaping to his death but that's about it really. It honestly didn't concentrate on the whole story, it more less concentrated on the lead characters who dressed up in ridiculous Mozart type costumes.Yeah, you wont be easily entertained or creeped out folks because its not something to go over the top about..........

A young protégé of the obese Lord Mortimer, Nell is offended by his friendship with Sims, the director of an asylum where a man is killed while trying to escape. During a dinner party, one of Sims' inmates is forced to perform but dies after being covered in gold paint. Mortimer and his friends find this highly amusing but Nell is not so happy with the conditions in the asylum, which she finds barbaric. She befriends a Quaker and the pair begin to initiate asylum reforms, but there are repercussions to come...Boris Karloff and producer Val Lewton band together once again to create a typically atmospheric slice of psychological horror, full of shadows and a general spooky ambiance. This time, the horrors are more real in the sense of the mentally ill, who are here treated in a respectful, if disturbing, light. Asylums have always come in useful in horror films and this is one of the best. The scenes with the inmates are quite disturbing, especially the mute staring girl and the man in the cage.Karloff is on top form once more and steals the entire picture with his portrayal of Sims, the director who is cruel and yet human. He stands out in the trial scene at the end of the film (which has influences going back to Shakespeare's KING LEAR) where the inmates test his sanity and find that he only practices cruelty as he is afraid of society. This trial is the highlight of the film and is well worth waiting for. Unfortunately, Anna Lee, the supposed heroine of the film, comes off as being more unlikeable than Karloff himself although the rest of the cast do their jobs admirably.The setting here is the mid-to-late 1700s, which means that the costumes are all fine and extravagant, while the scenes of the London and the way that the central upper classes of the story deal with the working classes are much the same as the themes in THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (at least what little we see of them). BEDLAM definitely benefits from Lewton's presence and both the plot and the atmosphere tie together nicely. While BEDLAM is short on shocks and scares used by numerous other horror films, it's high on visual images and an overall sense of oppression. And for that reason it's one to add to the collection.

This is one of the creepiest films on asylums I've ever seen I've ever seen. Bedlam stars Boris Karloff and this might be the most vile role that Karloff has ever played: Master George Sims.The movie is pure fiction - it is not based on a true story. It's a fictional story about St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum AKA Bedlam and it's a good story. Honestly, I don't doubt that there is some sort of truth within this film because many of us have heard real life horror stories about Bedlam before the reform or should I say the modern era.This movie is worth watching if you like creepy movies about asylums, Gothic-styled thrillers, and horror films. The movie is quite a bit underrated on IMDb (in my opinion).9/10