bensonmum2 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.

Aaron Igay Move along, there is nothing to see here. This was a completely forgettable film that takes place entirely inside a sadistic sanitarium. Now at first that may sound promising but with boring characters and ridiculous situations you will soon find yourself losing interest in this short b-movie. This film stars Richard Carlson who also featured in "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." Do you remember his standout performance in that classic? Yeah, me neither. The directer Oscar Boetticher, would go on to direct many successful Westerns, but only after he changed his name to Bud. Apparently his new studio never bothered to Google him.

JoeKarlosi An entertaining little item, if not with a very original plot line. It's a noirish low budget film starring Richard Carlson (THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON) as a private eye pretending to be mentally ill so he can be admitted to an asylum called "La Siesta Sanitarium". A woman reporter believes that a corrupt judge is hiding out there and wants Carlson to investigate. Naturally, once our hero gets inside it is revealed that despite its seemingly comforting name, this sanitarium is anything but warm and cozy with its underhanded coordinator and nasty attendants.This is a very short (62 minutes) and tightly wound film that moves and is well photographed with shadowy detail. Carlson is quite good in it, and I spotted former Our Gang child star Dickie Moore as a patient. Also on hand is Tor Johnson as a hulking punch drunk inmate in a padded cell who goes into his wild boxing antics whenever sadistic guards taunt him by tapping bell-like ringing sounds from outside his cage! This film is sometimes known as THE HUMAN GORILLA, which was its reissue title. *** out of ****

Dennis Littrell (Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon.)It seems like everything done in black and white in the forties, unless there was some singing and dancing in it, is now a film noir. (Well, excluding Olivier's 1949 Hamlet, I suppose.) When this "Poverty Row" production came out in 1948 I'm sure it was billed as a mystery/suspense tale, but never mind. "Film noir" is now a growth industry.There's a gumshoe, Ross Stewart played by Richard Carlson, whom I recall most indelibly as Herbert A. Philbrick of TV's cold war espionage series "I Led Three Lives" from the fifties when HUAC had us all looking under our beds for commies. Lucille Bremer, near the end (which was also near the beginning) of a very modest filmland career, co-stars as Kathy Lawrence, a newspaper woman with a story idea. She needs a private eye to do the investigative dirty work.Ross Stewart has just hung out his gumshoe shingle and had the frosted glass door of his office lettered and is paying the painter when Kathy Lawrence shows up. (I love all the private eye movies which begin with the dame showing up at the PI's office needing help. So logical, so correct; so like a noir "Once upon a time.") She wants him to pretend to be insane so that she can get him committed to a private sanitarium where she believes a corrupted judge is hiding, thus the locked doors in the title.What I liked about this is the way the low-budget production meshed with the gloomy and aptly named "La Siesta Sanitarium," the scenes shot in rather dim light giving everything a kind of shady appearance. The story itself and the direction by Oscar "Budd" Boetticher defines "pedestrian," but there is a curious and authentic period piece feel to the movie that can't be faked. Postmodern directors wanting to capture late-forties, early fifties L.A. atmosphere would do well to take a look at this tidy 62-minute production.Tor Johnson, the original "hulk" (perhaps) plays a dim-witted but violent punch drunk ex-fighter who is locked in a padded cell. He comes to life when the fire extinguisher outside his door is sadistically "rung" by one of the attendants with his keys, thereby springing the hulk into shadow boxing imaginary opponents. Could it be that he will get a live one later on...?See this for Richard Carlson who made a fine living half a century ago playing the lead or supporting roles in a slew of low budget mystery, horror and sci fi pictures, most notably perhaps The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).