1949 Directed by Douglas Sirk
Jenny Marsh is a hard-luck dame who's just finished five years in the slammer for killing a man. Jenny's not exactly the murdering type -- she did the deed while defending her jailbird lover, Harry, which is probably one reason she's attracted the attention of her parole officer, Griff Marat. In fact, Griff is so taken with Jenny that he gets her a job caring for his ailing mother. Jenny tries to fly right, but, she's just not over Harry yet.
Cornel Wilde Patricia Knight John Baragrey Esther Minciotti Howard St. John Russell Collins Charles Bates Richard Benedict Argentina Brunetti Paul Bryar Frank Ferguson James Flavin Frank Jaquet Ann Shoemaker Shirley Adams Gilbert Barnett Paul Bradley John Butler Claire Carleton Cliff Clark King Donovan Al Eben Virginia Farmer Eddie Foster Chuck Hamilton Sam Harris Earle Hodgins Charles Jordan George J. Lewis Show All…
L'incorruptible, Unerschütterliche Liebe, Más fuerte que la ley, Polttomerkitty, Jenny, femme marquée, Fiori nel fango, 쇼크프루프, Apaixonados, Flykt undan lagen, 防震
USA
Brazil12
Brazil
USA
Shockproof, directed by Douglas Sirk and based on a script by Samuel Fuller, opens with a scene showcasing a seemingly high society lady buying clothes...only to end up at a parole office, where she is revealed to be a former jailbird who has just finished five years inside for killing a man. What follows is a somewhat stuffy love story between parolee and parole officer, as Cornel Wilde's rules obsessed lawman falls for Patricia Knight's platinum blonde bombshell, much to the chagrin of her former boyfriend. The film is steeped in melodrama but offers a a wry and vageuly cynical look at the relationship between the reformed criminal and the justice system. Knight's character is tempted by the criminal underworld,…
Love as the ultimate reward out of a lifetime of perjury, neglected by a too comfortably judgmental society whose blind commitment and deliverance to it writes a descent into criminality.
Quite a cynical material bolstered by a melodramatic sappiness, which reflects the meeting of a Samuel Fuller script with Douglas Sirk directing. The mix shouldn’t work and as a whole, it sure doesn’t, but the final product still prevails with fine echoes of intriguing penumbra and interesting narrative subterfuges.
It's a journey to the bottom of the illicit, but that the hopefulness offered in the outcry for a worldly but peaceful living is constantly reinforced. Interrupted by the sin of self-deception of feelings and vices that blinds the character of…
A romantic noir of lovers from opposite sides of the law struggling to make it work, starring Cornel Wilde, and directed by Douglas Sirk with a script by Sam Fuller (Wilde's character's name is 'Griff' of course)--why isn't this thing more widely known, thought I, when I sat down to watch it?
Well, the answer comes about 3/4s of the way through the film, sadly, after Wilde and (a terrific) Patricia Knight go on the run, as Sirk apparently signed on because he liked Fuller's script, downbeat ending and all, of a Parole Officer who gives up his position in society for the love of a woman ex-con and then goes out in act of violence against the society that…
This one sounded promising, with Douglas Sirk directing and Sam Fuller one of the screenwriters. But it wound up pretty much a fail. A highly improbable script. A confusing mixture of noir and melodrama. And a rewritten happy ending imposed by the studio that belies all that went before. So it just didn't work in spite of the talent involved.
Patricia Knight plays Jenny, a convicted murderer released on parole. Her parole officer Griff (Cornel Wilde) who has serious boundary issues takes her into his home with a "job" of caring for his blind mother (!) and - surprise, surprise - falls madly in love with her. Jenny's lowlife crook ex-BF Harry (John Baragrey) is lurking around, concoting a scheme…
“I’m just starting to see you as you really are.”
Cornel Wilde with the major billing, his name with its own full screen in the opening credits (before the film title), plays Italian parole officer and simp-for-dames, Griff Marat. Jenny Marsh (Patricia Knight) turns the “always straight, always right” Griff into a rule breaker who steals sandwiches! Very much a Sirkian noir with its bleach blonde parolees and smoking gun flashback. And you can be sure it’s a Sirk because there are lots of low-angle shots of people going up and down stairs. A few too many perfect coincidences during the couple-on-the-run second half, and an “okay, well that does it” shrug of an ending which doesn’t address any of the systemic issues that lead to recidivism, but it appears that was more of a studio call than Fuller’s, so he’s off the hook for that.
Shockproof is that cross-breed hermaphrodite: half film noir, half melodrama. Half Samuel Fuller, half Douglas Sirk. We get gritty Fuller dialogue like, “you’ve got to change your brand of men,” and Sirk’s evocative visuals, striking interior shots that do to work of a psychologist’s voice over. Idealist loner fighting the system and doomed love. The film also shares with Vertigo themes of reinvention and an obsession with a bottle-blonde Galatea.
It’s set in some fantasy world’s Department of Corrections, where earnest officers provide concierge parole services from offices designed like artists lofts. Tough Love is dispensed by-the-book, with occasion exceptions make for a hot murderess.
All implausibility is washed away because we know Patricia Knight is worth making incrementally greater…
A seemingly irreproachable parole officer and a newly released female ex-convict fall in love. It turns out she went to prison to protect the vainglorious gambler (a scene-stealing John Baragrey) she was involved with prior to her arrest. Following a series of questionable decisions and double crosses, the enraptured pair take it on the lam...jeopardizing his career and possibly their potential happiness together.
Man, does Patricia Knight have that femme fatale vibe down pat. Granted, her character's turn in this movie tries to stay on a moral and law abiding path, but she storms into this picture's early scenes with a command that warrants attention. Along with some of the dialogue, she's the best thing about this film for me.…
Early collaboration between director Douglas Sirk and writer Sam Fuller yields primo Noir. Gorgeous design, sultry shadows and the use of fashion for transitions is delicious.
Screened on Criterion Channel.
who wouldn’t risk their career and reputation for patricia knight when she looks like that?
Part 2/5 of Catching Up with Doug Sirk Mini Project
"Maybe I'm no good for you, but I do love you."
Convicted murderer Jenny Marsh is released from jail and finds herself embroiled in a love triangle between her sophisticated gangster paramour Harry Wesson and her middle-class parole officer Griff Marat. Harry wants Jenny to con Griff into getting married so that they can blackmail him, but Jenny feels guilty for taking advantage of a man who just wants the best for her.
Hoo boy, I'm really torn about this one. I *absolutely loved* the setup for it: the power dynamics are so clear, between Jenny's vulnerability as an ex-con, the perceived stability of her former lover Harry ("the only…
Films I Watched On TV While I Was 'Working'
I knocked off a whole star for the ending to Shockproof, but it's so bloody awful that it really deserves to have them all taken away.
This is my first Douglas Sirk film and I've seen it suggested in a couple of places that this is very much a 'Sirk-esque ending'. If that's the case then me and him are not going to get on because there's no excuse for a single film in history to have an ending as terrible as this.
If it's one that's been bunged on the end by the studio looking for a happy ending to a film that patently shouldn't have one, then I'll forgive…
First, she has one guy who molds her, shapes her, controls all her behavior... then she switches over to another guy with exactly the same kind of controlling personality, remodeling her now according to *his* preconceptions. What or who would she be without all that guidance? We'll never know.
