Shock Corridor is a 1963 American psychological thriller film starring Peter Breck, Constance Towers, and Gene Evans. Written and directed by Samuel Fuller, the film tells the story of a journalist who gets himself intentionally committed to a mental hospital to solve a murder committed within the institution. Fuller originally wrote the film under the title Straitjacket for Fritz Lang in the late 1940s, but Lang wanted to change the lead character to a woman, so Joan Bennett could play the role.

Plot

Bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett hopes to uncover the facts behind the unsolved murder of Sloan, an inmate at a psychiatric hospital. He convinces an expert psychiatrist, Dr. Fong, to coach him to appear insane when it involves relating imaginary accounts of incest with his "sister", who is impersonated by his exotic-dancer girlfriend, Cathy; though against her wishes, she is talked into assisting him by filing a police complaint, and his performance during the investigation convinces the authorities to incarcerate him in the institution where the murder took place. Johnny is quickly disturbed by the behavior of his fellow inmates, and on one occasion is mauled by a group of female nymphomaniacs who assault him in their ward.