Behind Locked Doors (1948)

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.

****SPOILERS*** In an effort to track down on the lamb judge-for taking bribes-Finlay Drake, Herbert Hayes, reporter Ross Stewert, Richard Carson, with the help of of fellow reporter Kathy Lawrence, Lucille Bremer, goes undercover as a mental patient in the La Siesta Sanatorium in order to smoke him out and have him arrested by the police. First getting a clean bill of health that he in fact is nuts by psychiatrist J,R Bell, John Holland, Ross tries to find out if in fact Drake is a resident or inmate of the sanatorium before he himself is found out by the staff headed by Dr. Clifford Porter, Tom Brown Henry, that he's not nuts but a totally sane undercover reporter.Much like Samuel Fuller's 1963 movie "Shock Corridor" the film "Behind Locked Doors" follow or introduced the same storyline of a man faking insanity to track down a criminal in a mental institution that in this case, unlike in Fuller's movie, he doesn't end up being insane in doing it. It turns out that Dr. Porter is in on the scheme in hiding Judge Drake in his sanitarium but he gets cold feet when it's discovered that Stewart isn't what they think he is-a nut-case-and is told by the judge to off him: Hiding a fugitive from justice is one thing but murder is quite another! ***SPOILERS*** Trying to get Stewart killed in a staged accident he's locked in a cell with "The Champ" former heavyweight boxing champion suffering from in the ring brain damage, he always hears bells ringing, played by the hulking 400 pound Tor Johnson. Johnson was later to become immortalized in the 1955 Ed Wood classic "Bride of the Monster" as Bela Lugosi's hulking and mute assistant Lobo. It's in fact "The Champ" or Tor who's believe it or not not even in the film credits who turns out to be the hero here. After manhandling Stewart he suddenly turns on Dr. Porter and his goons and puts an end to their plans as well as to them themselves.

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.

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.