Bedlam DVD, 1946

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MovieMail's Review

MovieMail exclusive - intelligent horror with empathy and a dozen fearsome jolts. Rick Burin lets Boris Karloff strap him into a straightjacket in the last of Val Lewton's classic RKO chillers.

Bedlam was the last of eight classic chillers made by horror supremo Val Lewton. Working with low budgets and ridiculous audience-approved titles foisted on him by studio RKO – including I Walked with a Zombie – he crafted a succession of mini-masterpieces: literate, gripping and drenched in shadow. Bedlam isn’t as well-known as Cat People or The Body Snatcher, but it’s the match of those celebrated exercises in pure terror and contains arguably the greatest shot in all horror cinema.

Anna Lee is Nell Bowen, an ambitious, strong-willed young woman in 18th century London who dares to take on the social-climbing tyrant (Boris Karloff) in charge of the Bedlam psychiatric hospital and finds herself committed to the asylum.

The acting is spectacular, while Lewton's matchless ability to scare the hell out of everybody – epitomised by the gasp-inducing image which closes Karloff's send-off – is backed by a commitment to authenticity that saw long-deceased painter William Hogarth given a writing credit. This is intelligent horror with a heap of empathy but a dozen fearsome jolts.

Rick Burin on 27th September 2010
View all 34 of Rick Burin's reviews

Film Information

Director - Mark Robson

Produced - 1946

Main Language - English

Countries & Regions - American film

Cast - Jason Robards, Boris Karloff, Anna Lee

DVD Details

Certificate:	PG	Publisher:	Odeon Entertainment	Region:	2
Length:	79 mins	Aspect:	1.33:1	Cat No:	ODNF211
Format:	DVD B&W

DVD Extras

Photo Gallery.

Film Description

Bedlam: an eighteenth century lunatic asylum whose very name arouses dread and fear. Its malevolent director, Master George Sims (Boris Karloff) owes his position to the unpleasant local landowner (Billy House) and takes a keen pleasure in cruelly abusing his inmates. Lord Mortimer keeps an actress Nell Bowen (Anna Lee) on his retinue because she is pretty and entertaining, but when Nell visits Bedlam and sees its barbarity she asks her Quaker friend, Hannay (Richard Fraser) to try and initiate reforms. Her attempts at reform are thwarted by the evil Sims who has her committed to his ‘care’ in Bedlam to take her place amongst the insane. Once inside, however, Nell leads her fellow inmates in a revolt against the evil governor.

Produced by legendary B-movie producer Val 'Cat People' Lewton - the last film that he made for RKO Studios, this is also one of his best. The atmosphere and mood of the setting are adeptly evoked, and the use of William Hogarth engravings - The Rake’s Progress - as transitional devices is an aesthetic masterstroke that adds even more to the high production qualities.