Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Am I Missing Something?

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

For private detective Richard Carlson, a job is a job, and a risk is an every day occurrence. But in his latest assignment, he is forced to go behind locked doors as a patient in a private institution. Reporter Lucille Bremer hires him for the assignment with the hopes for getting the scoop on a crooked judge whom she believes to be hiding there. Danger lurks around every corner here, and the film only briefly details the reasons why some of these dangerous patients are there. But the majority of the staff is ruthless and abusive, and the head of the agency is clearly up to no good. An evil orderly gets the goods on Clarkson which leads to a violent scene where he locked in the same cell as the silent (but deadly deranged) Tor Johnson (of all people!) for a fist-pounding workover.At just over an hour, this poverty row film noir takes you into the mad world of a madhouse gone nuts thanks to stop at nothing to put some extra cash into their pocket. Even though this is obviously made on the cheap, it keeps you glued because there just isn't time for nonsense. The actors do their best to flesh out the characters with little help from the stream-lined screenplay, but tight editing, excellent photography and a tense atmosphere makes for a surprisingly gripping thriller.One of the patients is played by Dickie Moore who, like in "Out of the Past", plays a character that never speaks and is protected by an overworked orderly, perhaps the only compassionate character working in the private institution.

Behind Locked Doors is directed by Oscar "Budd" Boetticher and written by Eugene Ling and Malvin Wald. It stars Richard Carlson, Lucille Bremer, Douglas Fowley, Ralf Harolde, Thomas Browne Henry, Herbert Heyes, Gwen Donovan and Tor Johnson. Music is by Irving Friedman and cinematography by Guy Roe.Private detective Ross Stewart (Carlson) is coerced into going undercover at the La Siesta Sanitarium in search of a corrupt judge that reporter Kathy Lawrence (Bremer) believes is hiding out there. Getting himself committed under the guise of being a manic depressive, Stewart finds more than he bargained for once inside the gloomy walls of the asylum.Clocking in at just over an hour in length, Behind Locked Doors is compact and devoid of any sort of flab. Firmly a "B" asylum based pot boiler of the kind film makers always find fascinating, it's a picture dripped thoroughly in noir style visuals. This not only pumps the story with atmosphere unbound, it also allows the economically adroit Boetticher to mask the low budget restrictions to make this look far better than it had any right to be.Cure or be killed!Narratively it's simple fare, undercover man uncovers sadistic humans entrusted to care for the mentally ill. The "inmates" are the usual roll call of the unfortunates, the criminally inclined or the outright hulking maniac. There's a good male nurse who we can hang our hopes on, we wonder if our intrepid protagonist will survive this perilous assignment, and of course there's a love interest added in to spice the human interest factor.Cast performances are effective for the material to hand, but without the said visual arrangements of Boetticher and Roe the characterisations would lack impact. The camera-work shifts appropriately with the various tonal flows of the story, angles and contrasts change and with the picture almost exclusively shot in low lights and shadows, the Sanitarium is consistently a foreboding place of fear and fret. And not even some rickety sets can alter the superb atmospherics on show. 7/10

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 little b movie , made for next to nothing has more suspense & interest than most of todays so called big films we were completley enthralled especially by Lucille Bremer. a very beautiful actress who had too short a careersee this little gemJay Harris