Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

A pretty stodgy thriller in the Hitchcock mould. Cornel Wilde plays a handsome young parole officer who accidentally falls in love with a prisoner who's been recently released and is now trying to go straight. Patricia Knight is the femme fatale and object of his affections. Despite his best intentions, she ends up hooking up with her sinister criminal ex-boyfriend, leading to unforeseen consequences for all involved.Despite an intriguing storyline, SHOCKPROOF misses the mark for the most part, content to spend the majority of its running time with long-winded dialogue scenes and mild romance. Things only pick up when the couple go on the run, but that's towards the end of the production and SABOTEUR this ain't. The leads are rather weak and John Baragrey bags the best role as the conniving ex.

They say it's the journey, not the destination, that usually counts with stories. In the case of Shockproof it's good to just focus on the journey, in all its B-movie-ness and, yes since it is Douglas Sirk, melodrama, because the destination kind of stinks. The film's story concerns a beautiful blonde parolee played by Patricia Knight who is put into the watchful eye and soon enough loving arms of her parole officer, Cornell Wilde. She's been wanting to get back together with her former lover, a gambler-hustler named Harry Wesson, who by the look of the guy is sleazy but perhaps not too bad a shake for a 'dame' like Knight plays. But the parole officer wants a better life for her, and that she knows it too. Soon she does, after some persistence, fall for Griff, but at a price when another character gets (preumably) murdered after a gunshot.It becomes a lovers-on-the-run story, and, not to quote Harry's own line about the melodrama I mention above, this twist does bring some melodrama with it as the characters try to evade the law, cross into Mexico, go back into the states and Griff becomes an oil-drill worker. But the main problem of being on the lam catches up to them, and finally a decision is made. It's around here, in just the last few minutes, that the film really crumbles into predictability (and, to be fair, it wasn't Fuller's idea as the producer rewrote the script before filming). The acting and the script up until that point, however, does deliver on the promise of a simple premise. There's nothing terribly special about the story, but it works on its own terms as a tale of a love-triangle gone awry. We know the situation might be different if a character did something smarter, or did something more drastic or if, say, Harry went more into an actual criminal role and just ran off with Jenny to start with after she got out of prison.But as it stands the performances are just fine- even the one-note crooning of the blind mother of Griff's who knows what she knows even without seeing, a real Fuller caricature if I ever saw one- and when it comes off like a real film-noir, with edge and believability, both of the legends Sirk and Fuller can get credit. It's no great shakes, but it passes 80 minutes by with some rich emotions and a, with a few exceptions in some scenes, solid dramatic turns and directions made by the characters.

"Shockproof" brought together the disparate talents of two men who were both destined to achieve their greatest successes as directors in the 1950s. Samuel Fuller who wrote the screenplay had previously worked as a newspaper crime reporter and had also written pulp novels. His simple and forceful style used tabloid and pulp influences to produce a script which is full of drive and colour. Douglas Sirk, who directed the movie, was a sophisticated man whose instincts leant more towards the polished style which in later years, characterised the glossy melodramas for which he became famous. Forbidden, inappropriate or doomed love affairs provide powerful material for melodramas and whilst the relationship depicted in "Shockproof" offered Sirk the kind of subject matter which instinctively appealed to him, the extreme and criminal consequences it produced very much suited Fuller's style of writing.When Jenny Marsh (Patricia Knight) is released from prison, her parole officer Griff Marat (Cornel Wilde) gives her a list of strict conditions which she is required to adhere to in order to avoid being sent back into detention. One of the most important ones (besides not getting married) is that she must stay away from Harry Wesson (John Baragrey), a smarmy gambler who was partly responsible for the events which led to her conviction. Marat is annoyed when, despite being set up with a job and a place to live, she persists in seeing Wesson and is even caught by the police when they raid a bookie's business. As he's convinced of her potential to reform, Griff employs her in his own home looking after his blind mother, an arrangement which he feels will be helpful to give her first hand experience of family life and also keep her away from the attentions of Harry Wesson.Griff falls in love with his parolee and proposes marriage. She turns him down but when Harry hears about the proposal he puts pressure on Jenny to accept because this would make Griff an accomplice to breaking the terms of her parole. Jenny and Griff get married in secret but one day Harry phones Griff and starts to tell him something about Jenny. Their conversation is suddenly interrupted when a shot is heard. When Griff finds out that Jenny has shot and seriously wounded Harry (and it's uncertain whether he'll survive), the couple go on the run with the intention of escaping to Mexico. The problems they encounter in trying to evade the police eventually become so intolerable that they decide to turn themselves in. When they do however, the events that follow come as a great surprise.Although Griff is a very conventional and ambitious man with an ideal family life, when he becomes attracted to Jenny, a startling change occurs and a great deal of crazy stuff follows. His intelligence and powers of judgement seem to desert him, otherwise why would he invite a convicted murderer to work in his home and look after his blind mother? Why would he marry her knowing that his complicity in breaking the terms of her parole would damage his reputation and jeopardise his career? His lack of concern about the fact that she attempted to murder Harry is remarkable and it's amazing how readily he goes on the run with her and also how quickly he resorts to criminal action when the need arises. He also seems to suddenly ignore the implications of his actions in terms of how they will impact on his family and his political ambitions."Shockproof" provides an account of how powerful passions can derail the lives of even the most conservative and respectable of people but does so in a way which is entertaining, fast paced and competently acted. Unfortunately, a studio imposed ending does detract from the power and the credibility of the story, but this short low budget movie still, nevertheless, remains interesting and well worth seeing.

"Shockproof" is a 1949 Douglas Sirk film starring Cornel Wilde and Patricia Knight. Wilde is Griff Marat, who gets a paroled prisoner, Jenny Marsh (Knight) on his caseload. She refuses to give up the bad acquaintances that got her into trouble in the first place; this includes her old boyfriend, Harry (John Baragrey) whom she continues to meet secretly. Griff has taken Jenny into his home to care for his blind mother (Esther Minciotti), and over time, they fall in love. Though she's still pulled toward Harry, she balks when Harry wants her to convince Griff to marry her, a clear violation of his job ethics and her parole. Because Griff has political ambitions, they will then have them where they want him. Gradually Harry realizes that Jenny is not going to cooperate, and he ends up gravely injured. Griff and Jenny go on the run to avoid her arrest.This is a pretty good noir with two heavyweights attached, Sirk, the director, and Sam Fuller, who co-wrote the script. Unfortunately, the characters aren't fleshed out enough so that we understand their sudden turnarounds - a man on the side of the law with political ambitions decides to throw it all out the window, marry a client secretly, and go on the run riding in boxcars and living in shacks because though the shooting was accidental, Griff feels Jenny won't be believed. That's just Griff - in reality, all three of the main characters do complete reversals during the course of this film with little or no justification.Wilde does a good job here, and Knight, a new actress to me, is beautiful and has good chemistry opposite her then husband Wilde. She didn't work much longer, as after their divorce, her career dried up.Entertaining.