Themes: Love Triangles, Double Life, Haunted By the Past
Main Cast: Cornel Wilde, Patricia Knight, John Baragrey, Esther Minciotti, Howard St. John
Release Year: 1949
Country: US
Run Time: 79 minutes
Plot
Beauty contest winner Patricia Knight's one bid for screen stardom was Columbia's Shockproof. Knight plays Jenny Wright, a convicted murderess paroled in the care of probation officer Griff Marat (Cornel Wilde). What begins as an aloof professional relationship eventually blossoms into romance. The fly in the ointment is shady Harry Wesson (John Baragrey), the gambler who inveigled Jenny into committing murder. The girl is torn between creature comforts offered her by Wesson and the promise of a clean life offered by Griff. This early Douglas Sirk effort contains a smattering of the stylistic touches which distinguished his later work.The screenplay was written by famed director Samuel Fuller, known for his gritty realism and hard-boiled style. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Carl Anderson - Art Director, Jean Louis - Costume Designer, Earl Bellamy - First Assistant Director, Douglas Sirk - Director, Gene Havlick - Editor, George Duning - Composer (Music Score), Morris W. Stoloff - Musical Direction/Supervision, Clay Campbell - Makeup, Charles Lawton - Cinematographer, Earl McEvoy - Producer, S. Sylvan Simon - Producer, Helen Deutsch - Producer, Louis Diage - Set Designer, Samuel Fuller - Screenwriter, Helen Deutsch - Screenwriter
The director of Shockproof, Douglas Sirk, said he took the assignment because the movie dealt with one of his favorite themes: the price of flouting taboos.
Wilde plays Griff Marat, a parole officer who falls in love with a parolee, Jenny Marsh (Knight). Marsh had gone to prison in order to protect a gambler with whom she was having an affair. Out of concern for her welfare, Marat hires Marsh as a caretaker for his blind mother (Esther Minciotti).
In Samuel Fuller's original script, the film ended with a violent rebellion by Marat against the system that kept him and Marsh apart. The studio had National Velvet scriptwriter Helen Deutsch step in to pen a soft-suds rewrite.
The movie had a disappointing box office in its original run. New York Times reviewer Matt Zoller Seitz indicated that Shockwave's revival run at the Two Boots Pioneer Theater in January 2007 was the film's first run in New York City.
Zwei Genies (1934) • Das Mädchen vom Moorhof (1935) • Der Eingebildete Kranke (1935) • Dreimal Ehe (1935) • April, April! (1935) • Stützen der Gesellschaft (1935) • La Chanson du souvenir (1936) • t was een april (1936) • Schlußakkord Das Hofkonzert (1936) • Das Hofkonzert (1936) • Zu neuen Ufern (1936) • Zu neuen Ufern (1937) • La Habanera (1937) • Accord final (1938) • Boefje (1939)
1940s
Hitler's Madman (1943) • Summer Storm (1944) • A Scandal in Paris (1946) • Lured (1947) • Sleep, My Love (1948) • Shockproof (1949) • Slightly French (1949)
