1964 film by Denis Sanders
Shock Treatment is a 1964 American neo noir drama film directed by Denis Sanders that takes place in a mental institution, starring Stuart Whitman, Carol Lynley, Roddy McDowall, and Lauren Bacall.[2] As one of many films dealing with insane killers in "Psycho's" wake Lauren Bacall disliked the film intensely calling it the worst of her career despite its cult following in later years.
Plot
Martin Ashley, a mentally ill gardener, decapitates his boss, the wealthy Mrs. Townsend, with a pair of garden shears. He subsequently turns himself in to the police, is found insane, and is sent to a mental institution ruled by psychiatrist Edwina Beighley. During Ashley’s hearing, Dr. Beighley learns that Ashley has possibly buried $1 million belonging to the late Mrs. Townsend.
Mrs. Townsend's executor, Harley Manning, is suspicious of Ashley and hires actor Dale Nelson to simulate madness and land himself in the same institution. Dale is to locate $1 million in stolen money that Ashley might have hidden. In payment for the illegal impersonation, Manning puts $10,000 in a safety deposit box in Nelson’s name, withholding the key until the mission is accomplished. Needing to feign mental illness and gain Ashley’s confidence, Nelson prepares for his role by studying books on psychology and gardening. Nelson gets himself arrested by breaking a store window, railing against “conformity,” and ranting about the monetary worth of chemicals in the human body.
Getting himself assigned to gardening as “occupational therapy”, Nelson meets Ashley, who initially is hostile to another gardener meddling in his garden. Nelson wins him over by his botanical knowledge and admiration of the special rose that Ashley developed, winning a competition for his former employer. Nelson also becomes acquainted with another patient, Cynthia Albright, developing a personal interest in her. Cynthia has issues with men touching her but begins slowly to trust Nelson, who is understanding of her condition.
During therapy sessions, Dr. Beighley uses hypnosis on Ashley, attempting to learn where he has buried the $1 million. She is desperate for money to continue her research into catatonia. Realizing that Dale is a fraud when she finds him eavesdropping on a therapy session with Ashley, she orders an electroconvulsive therapy treatment on him as a means of torture. After he regains consciousness, she questions his motives for being there, threatening him for illegally gaining entry into the institution. He threatens to expose her for illegally administering shock treatment knowingly on a sane person. She responds to his threat by twice injecting him with drugs that leave him in states of catatonia, using him as a human guinea pig for her experimentation. A third injection will leave Nelson in a permanent catatonic state.
After regaining consciousness a second time, Nelson, in a wheelchair, must continue to feign being catatonic to avoid a third injection. When Cynthia visits him, Nelson waits until the attendant leaves to tell her of his predicament. Cynthia signals when the attendant is approaching. That evening at a dance, Ashley wheels a “catatonic” Nelson outside and begins to scold him for pretending to be his friend according to Dr. Beighley. Nelson cannot give away his consciousness even as Ashley attempts to strangle him in fury at his “betrayal”. Cynthia arrives with an orderly to save him and slips him a key she has stolen. When the orderly takes Nelson to his room, Nelson attacks him and escapes from the hospital.
Fleeing to Manning’s home, Nelson finds that Manning has died of a heart attack and Manning’s secretary has no knowledge of the impersonation. The secretary calls the police, but Nelson overhears and manages to escape before they arrive.
Nelson arrives at the Townsend estate as Ashley and Dr. Beighley are digging a hole where Ashley has buried the money. The sack Ashley has buried contains nothing but the ashes of burnt money. Ashley snaps at Dr. Beighley, who is angry with him, incredulous that he burned $1 million. When she hits him, repeatedly asking him where the money is, Ashley attacks her; however, Dale intervenes and stops him from killing her. During the fight, Ashley falls into a spiked fence and becomes impaled. Dr. Beighley's desperation for the money sends her into a state of delusion, succumbing to madness and determined to recover the money, believing it to be buried somewhere on the estate.
Nelson testifies at Dr. Beighley's sanity hearing, and she herself is institutionalized, insisting repeatedly that she knows the money exists “after 31 separate hours” of questioning Ashley. As Dr. Beighley rambles on to other patients in the institution's recreational grounds, Cynthia is discharged, leaving the institution with Nelson.
Reception
According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $2,400,000 in film rentals to break even and made $944,000, meaning it lost money.[3]
