Film School: Shock Corridor

Welcome to Film School! This is a column focused on movie history and all the stars, filmmakers, events, laws and, yes, movies that helped write it. Film School is a place to learn—no homework required.

Sam Fuller’s most renowned movie of the 1960s had its roots back in the ‘40s. It started life as a film Fuller, who began his Hollywood career penning screenplays for other directors, had written for Fritz Lang—Straitjacket, as it was originally titled, was to be a searing expose of the shocking quality of care that mentally ill patients were receiving in institutions across America.