Shock Treatment

This film had some intense moments. Stuart Whitman is sent into a mental institution to pretend he is insane in order to spy on inmate Roddy Macdowell and find out where he might have hidden $1 million. Lauren Bacall plays the doctor/research scientist who is very much interested in the money as well.

With her own animal torture lab(in California and Africa!), and grumbling that she cant perform dangerous experiments the way she'd like to...we get a picture early on that she isnt Florence Nightingale! There are a couple of scenes that were as disturbing as comparable moments from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and the Marathon Man.

Although i found the film decent enough--with fine performances from the leads, and a good ending, it did seem a bit rushed in places, and some supporting characters either had unwarranted emphasis(Carol Lynley) or too little(Ossie Davis, Bert Freed). The rest of the patients seemed to be borrowed from "the Snake Pit."

As a 1960's suspense flick it wasnt bad, but this would be a great contender for a remake.