January 19, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES I & III • Page 23 Sam Fuller’s ‘Shock Corridor’ comes to the small screen by Dennis Seuling “Shock Corridor” (The Criterion Collection), newly available on Blu-ray, is writerdirector Sam Fuller’s 1963 low-budget look at day-to-day life in an asylum. Sandwiched in time between “The Snake Pit” (1949) and “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1975), two other films that provide harrowing looks at mental institutions, “Shock Corridor” unfolds as an escalating nightmare as the viewer experiences the asylum from the point of view of a person who may gradually be going mad. Newspaperman Johnny Barrett (Peter Breck) pretends to be demented to get admitted to a San Francisco asylum, the site of a recent, unsolved murder, on the hunch that the patients hold the key to the crime. By mingling with them as a fellow inmate, he hopes to solve the mystery and pick up a Pulitzer Prize. The theme of a sane person in an institution has been examined many times on the big and small screens. Fuller manages to offer a disturbingly realistic, raw tale as Barrett is immersed in the routines and everyday life of a mental patient. As time passes, his surroundings have a dramatic effect on him. The final scene is unforgettable. The last scene of Fuller’s script was nixed by the producer as far too costly, since it would literally destroy the set and multiple takes would escalate the cost of the film way above “low budget” status. Making sure he filmed every single other scene in the script and double-checking to make sure retakes weren’t necessary, Fuller shot the final scene last, providing the film with a highly dramatic finale. Fuller always managed to work within the limits of small budgets to create films of individuality, controversy, and intriguing subject matter. Cast with non-stars, “Shock Corridor” is plot driven and the actors are competent, if not exceptional. It is to Fuller’s credit that the film is so riveting without the customary star appeal. The new, restored, high-definition digital transfer contains a 1996 documentary on Fuller and a booklet featuring a critical essay and excerpts from his autobiography. “Jack Goes Boating” (Anchor Bay), available in Blu-ray and DVD, is based on the off-Broadway play of the same name by Bob Glaudini. Jack (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a limo driver with hazy dreams of landing a job with the MTA and an obsession with reggae that has prompted him to begin a halfhearted attempt at growing dreadlocks. He spends most of his time hanging out with his best friend and fellow driver, Clyde (John Ortiz), and Clyde’s Peter Breck plays a journalist posing as a mental patient in the Sam Fuller drama, ‘Shock Corridor.’ wife, Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega). The couple set Jack up with Connie (Amy Ryan), Lucy’s coworker at a Brooklyn funeral home. Being with Connie inspires Jack to learn to cook, pursue a new career, and take swimming lessons from Clyde so he can give Connie the romantic boat ride she dreams of. But as Jack and Connie cautiously avoid commitment, Clyde and Lucy’s marriage begins to disintegrate. Hoffman is very good as Jack, but that may be the very reason “Jack Goes Boating” is so difficult to warm to. In addition to being socially awkward, even inept, he has to be pushed into activity. He just kind of exists. His passive personality is hard to take over the movie’s 90-minute running time. 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