--- description: 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... title: Cinema: Boredom in Bedlam image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [U.S.](/section/us/) # Cinema: Boredom in Bedlam by [TIME](/author/time/) Mar 13, 1964 5:00 AM CUT by [TIME](/author/time/) Mar 13, 1964 5:00 AM CUT 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 seeing may well be his fellow players, feigning madness in the best amateur style while a sound track symphony booms music to go to pieces by. As a manic-depressive sex kitten, Carol Lynley somehow suggests that a good fortified cereal would put her back together again. McDowall and Whitman, tending the rose garden, make thorny work of it. And Actress Bacall, woefully miscast, exercises her steel-and-velvet charm as if she were running a rest home for demented Bunnies. Bacall’s throatiest, most telling line: “I detest stupid people who think they can fake mental illness.” Fortunately, nobody need submit to Shock Treatment unless he is dragged in screaming. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6624456/cinema-boredom-in-bedlam/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/6624456/cinema-boredom-in-bedlam/"},"headline":"Cinema: Boredom in Bedlam","datePublished":"1964-03-13T05:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-26T07:25:01.950Z","description":"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...","url":"https://time.com/archive/6624456/cinema-boredom-in-bedlam/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME","url":"https://time.com/author/time/"}],"articleSection":"U.S.","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/us/","name":"U.S."}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/6624456/cinema-boredom-in-bedlam/","name":"Cinema: Boredom in Bedlam"}}]}] ```