JasparLamarCrabb A pretty bland thriller with a plot that could have been played out and wrapped up much more quickly via a TWILIGHT ZONE episode. When a wealthy old lady is murdered by her demented gardener, one of her greedy heirs hires actor Stuart Whitman to infiltrate a mental hospital, befriend the gardener and find the whereabouts of a some buried loot. Also on the prowl for the fortune is power mad psychiatrist Lauren Bacall. Directed, poorly, by Denis Sanders and featuring a cast made up of what one would think is camp heaven...in addition to Bacall and Whitman, there's Carol Lynley, Timothy Carey and Roddy McDowell as the gardener. They barely register, though Carey's cameo gives the film a brief lift. Ultimately, it's all silly and very slow moving. Any irony introduced is diminished by multiple endings. Jerry Goldsmith's score is pretty impressive and was clearly expanded upon later on with PLANET OF THE APES.

sol ***SPOILERS*** It's when his boss the eccentric and wealthy Mrs. Amelia Townsend, Betrice Grenough, started messing with his beloved plants that her Gardner all around handy man, as well as chauffeur, the not so stable Martin Ashley, Roddy McDowell, ended up decapitating her with a pair of garden shears. Turning himself into the police and not defending his murderous action Ashley is later declared insane and sent to a mental institution until he's deemed to be normal by a battery of court appointed psychiatrists.It's the late Mrs. Townsend's good friend millionaire Harley Manning, Judson Laire, who smelled a rat in her murderer Martin Ashley getting off so easy and that rat was non other then Ashley's court appointed psychologist Dr. Edwina Beighley, Lauren Bacall. It was Dr. Beighley's testimony on Ashley's behalf that save him, by Ashley being committed into Dr. Beighley's mental institution, from either the San Quentin gas chamber or a life sentence behind bars. Feeling that there's something more to Dr. Beighley's concern in keeping Ashley in her mental institution then just curing him! Manning gives $10,000.00 to struggling actor Dale Nelson, Stuart Whitman, so he could fake his way, by acting crazy, into Dr. Beighley's "funny farm" as well as learning all about plants and flowers in order to get close to the flower and plant lover Martin Ashley! And thus find out what kind of relationship he had with Dr. Beighley in order for her to be so good to him! And as Nelson was soon to find out it had nothing to do with romance. It did in fact have a lot to do with the late Mrs. Townsend's missing million dollars!Much like the Samuel Fuller 1963 classic "Shock Corridor" the film "Shock Treatment" has to do with a man going undercover in a mental institution to get to the truth about a crime that was committed by one of its inmates. And at the same time almost ending up losing his mind in doing so! Nelson tries to get close to Ashley by claiming to be a "flower child" like himself but Ashley instinctively knows that he's only putting him on and refuses to play along with him. It's in fact the very shrewd and manipulative Dr. Beighley who finally gets Ashley to open up, with him spending 31 hours on the coach being psychoanalyzed by her, and tell her what she so desperately want's to know. Where Mrs. Townsend's million is!***SPOILERS*** Nelson is later found out by Dr. Beighley to have been "planted" in her mental institution by her sworn enemy Haley Manning who's out to have her license revoked for unethical and unprofessional conduct. Being put under shock treatment and psychotic drugs Nelson somehow is able to escape from Dr. Beighley institution only to find out that the very person who can prove his innocence in being normal, not psychotic, Haley Manning had just died! This sets the audience up for the shocking surprise at the end of the film in where the buried million, dug up by both Ashley & Dr.Beighley, was hidden! Yes it was there all right just like Ashley said it would be but the condition that it was in was quite another matter!

blanche-2 Stuart Whitman is a money-hungry actor who is hired to fake insanity in order to find $1 million in "Shock Treatment." The film also stars Lauren Bacall, Roddy McDowell, Carol Lynley, and Ossie Davis. When asked about this film, Lauren Bacall commented, "You have no idea what Roddy and I went through making that movie." I don't, and frankly, it's a little hard to tell what the problems were from the filming. It seemed pretty straightforward. She plays a doctor who would have found a good home on Josef Mengele's staff. McDowell is a patient in the asylum who killed his wealthy boss and then supposedly burned her money. No one believes that, and Whitman is hired to find out where he hid it.It turns out, he's not the only one interested, and things become pretty dangerous for him. The movie seems to meander along, and then becomes rather exciting toward the end. It was directed and filmed in an uninteresting way, so it's not as good as it could have been.

David (Handlinghandel) Stuart Whitman is seen in a classical acting role and recruited to play a very rough part: He is to be paid for feigning insanity and being committed to psychiatric hospital. The goal is to learn more about a character played by Roddy McDowell, who is confined there.Whitman is excellent, as is McDowell. The latter develops a bit of an unstated crush on the former. So does Carol Lynley, who has a very small role for the major billing she gets.The plot revolves around psychiatrist and researcher Lauren Bacall. This character could give Dr. Caligari a run for his money.It's not hough art but i's exciting and suspenseful. And the acting is excellent all around.