160: Substantive Cinema | Shock Corridor feat. Mike White & Spencer Parsons

Once again, we recorded this episode a while back (a number of months ago, in this case) but due to the lamentable state of many things in the US, our episode this week feels eerily timely.

For our first Noirvember Substantive Cinema epsiode of 2024, we are looking at one of Samuel Fuller's most celebrated and highly regarded films, Shock Corridor. In the movie, Johnny Barrett, a journalist in pursuit of fame and acclaim, poses as a lunatic in order to infiltrate a mental institution where a murder has taken place. Can he keep his sanity long enough to solve the case and what will be left of him if he can?

In our discussion we cover: how Sam Fuller bluntly portrays America's various psychoses (nationalism, racial hatred, and the worship of violent power) in the three eyewitnesses that Johnny needs to interrogate, the legacy of Fuller's work in filmmakers like Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Spike Lee, and Jim Jarmusch, the role of journalism in a free society, and more!

Watch Shock Corridor on the Internet Archive

Listen to Mike, Spencer, and I talk about The Naked Kiss, Fuller's follow up to Shock Corridor which also stars Constance Towers.

My discussion of Fuller's war films on The Stacks

Forty Guns episode of The Criterion Connection

Follow Mike's work at Weirding Way

Shoutouts

Spencer: When the Clock Broke by John Ganz

The Surrealism of Friday the 13th

Mike: The Good Fairy

The Strawberry Blonde

Philip: The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch

If you're newer to the show be sure to check out our library of 150+ episodes with folks like Karen Swallow Prior, Jemar Tisby, Tyler Huckabee, Kaitlyn Schiess, Propaganda, Josh Larsen, Stephanie Stalvey, and John Carroll Lynch.

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