Really Surprised!

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

I just saw the movie and still do not know what to think. It's an uncomfortable movie, no doubt nothing is "light" in the film. The scenes with the crazy 3 who witnessed the murder leading our protagonist to the mentally ill hospital are very well done. The Negro to repudiate his race and to wear the "uniform" of the Ku Klux Klan is a scene that he does not forget. On the one hand, this film is more disturbing than the Oscar-nominated "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest", made 12 years later. On the other hand, there are certain scenes of the film that seemed to me that they did not have the proper sequence, as for example the protagonist begins to convince that his girlfriend is his sister. Well, the film does not leave us indifferent, not at all, and this is already a great merit. From Samuel Fuller, I had seen "the big red one" and "the white dog", films that I liked a lot. This also I think I liked, but I'm still "absorbing" the movie.

Am I the only person who wonders why there are never any attendants around when all the unpleasantries take place? John being attacked by the women (after going through a door that's unlocked when he goes through, but locked when he tries to escape), the race riot in the hall, etc. Even in 1963, so many patients would not be left completely alone at any time, let alone most of the time as seems to be the case in this movie.

Bent on winning a Pulitzer Prize, a journalist commits himself to a mental institution to solve a strange and unclear murder.I knew nothing of this film going in, and really had little idea of who Sam Fuller was. I saw "Pickup on South Street", but that by no means prepared me for this masterpiece. Anyone who wants to see life in the early 1960s, this is the film to see, because it tells it real and it tells it raw.The plot and characters have all the hallmarks of exploitation, and yet this was a mainstream film. Maybe it had no big actors and maybe it won few awards, but it should have. This film is a treasure, and one of the all-time greatest American movies ever made for its story alone.

What some people won't give up to get the big story. When that story involves murder, it can lead to madness. This film gives the tagline, "Whom God intends to destroy, he first drives mad". I am not sure I agree with that analogy, but some being is definitely out to drive reporter Peter Breck mad as well as the sad creatures he ends up surrounded by when he enters a mental institution to discover the truth about this unsolved crime. This is the type of film that at times appears to be one giant metaphor, and in the case of this low-budget psychological thriller that took film noir into a new direction, that metaphor leaves you with a lot of head scratching. In spite of all that, you can't take your eyes off of the screen.For example, just what is the relationship between Breck and the beautiful exotic dancer (Constance Towers) who may or may not be his sister? He claims to psychiatrist Phillip Ahn that they are indeed siblings, but their relationship is definitely not brother and sisterly. Enough clues are revealed to tell the truth, but the fact that this key plot point was utilized in the first place puts a rather creepy feeling into the story.This was a change of pace for the gorgeous Ms. Towers who had played only corseted heroines and was moving into the Broadway musical stage at this point. To see the very sophisticated Mrs. John Gavin in almost next to nothing is shocking in itself, especially if you first remember her, as I did, as the sweet Clarissa McCandless on the daytime soap "Capitol". Of course, I went into complete shock years after that when she began her long-running role as the throat-slicing Helena Cassadine on "General Hospital", so this shows how, as a young actress, she wanted to explore a variety of parts, no matter how racy or crazy the characters were. See her other Samuel Fuller directed film noir, the steamy "The Naked Kiss" for another side of this gorgeous lady.While the plot takes a while to unfold, it is filled with details of the various types of characters one might encounter in an old fashioned mental institution. Most shocking is the grossly overweight killer who can't get enough to eat, and somewhat controversial is the black patient who has somehow come to believe that he is white and a supremacist to boot. When the black patient starts a chase of another black inmate, obviously planning a lynching, you might find yourself open-mouthed in shock because it truly is unbelievable.This isn't a film that I think I could watch over and over again. It is definitely extremely spooky to watch, and in this day and age where mental institutions pretty much no longer exist (except for the criminally insane), it makes you look at how times haven't helped people with mental issues, only left them lacking in the type of care they need. Of course, we'll never be back to the type of institutions which film audiences got to explore through "Bedlam", "The Snake Pit" and "The Caretakers" (although this one makes those films look tame in comparison), but these films remind us of how our society has gone from one extreme to another where nothing is done, even if the evil of past treatments no longer exist as well.