Cinema: Boredom in Bedlam

Shock Treatment is more than a slip, it's a Freudian pratfall. It makes a shambles of psychiatry and brings the art of film close to idiocy. Stuart Whitman is hired to bluff his way into a mental hospital where Psychotic Killer Roddy McDowall may or may not reveal the location of $1,000,000 in stolen cash. But malevolent Psychiatrist Lauren Bacall also craves money, to continue her research. When she hits on Whitman's game, she prescribes electroshock therapy, then injects a concoction into his jugular vein to induce catatonia.

The "horrible twisted images" Whitman reports...