Behind Locked Doors (1948)

"How many times have I told you not to abuse the patients?", 6 July 2017

A judge who has run afoul of the law has gone into hiding. Reporter Kathy Lawrence (Lucille Bremer) believes she has tracked the judge to a private sanitarium. She hires a private detective, Ross Stewart (Richard Carlson), to go undercover as a patient to help find the judge. Stewart quickly falls out of favor with one of the sanitarium attendants and puts himself in danger. Can they bust open the case before Stewart's cover is blown?

There's an amazing amount of entertainment stuffed into Behind Locked Doors' less than 62 minute runtime. Being brief, there's no time for filler. This is one quick, fast paced film. Even so, director Budd Boetticher was still able to give the film atmosphere – and I love atmosphere. The sanitarium setting, with the locked rooms upstairs housing the dangerous patients, provides the right amount of mystery. The cast is good – especially for a B-noir. Richard Carlson has always seemed like a very capable actor and does good work here. I wasn't at all familiar with Lucille Bremer, but she gives her reporter just the right amount of spunk. As good as they are, though, it's Douglas Fowley that really makes this film tick. He is the perfect, brutal advisory for our heroes. Finally, I got a little joy when I realized that Tor Johnson had a brief, but pivotal, role in Behind Locked Doors. He's as convincing as anyone in the film playing the dangerous, mute psycho. It's nice to see Tor is a "good" movie for a change. I'm sure I could pick apart the movie and write about plot holes and logic inconsistencies, but Behind Locked Doors is so entertaining that I had no problem looking past these issues.

7/10