Bedlam (1946)

Set in 1761 London, the cruel and sadistic overseer (Boris Karloff) of a mental asylum is challenged by a young woman (Anna Lee), who hopes to reform the asylum. To get his revenge and remove her from any influence, he manipulates her former patron (Billy House) into having her committed to his asylum. Inspired by the painting series THE RAKE'S PROGRESS by William Hogarth and directed by Mark Robson (VALLEY OF THE DOLLS). A box office failure when first released, this disturbing look at the horrors of a corrupt mental health system still hasn't received its due. Unlike most of his other films, the producer Val Lewton puts subtlety aside and although the movie retains the stylish atmosphere of horror that is his trademark, we aren't spared the degradation of the mentally ill who have been abandoned by society to rot in a hellhole that calls itself a mental hospital. Karloff's administrator is the worst kind of monster, fully conscious of his malignant actions. As the "heroine", Anna Lee's character is no saint either. She's rather shallow and cruel herself although not to the extreme of Karloff's charlatan. Only after being exposed to and living first hand with the "loonies" as she calls them does she have true compassion. With Richard Fraser, Ian Wolfe, Elizabeth Russell, Ellen Corby and Robert Clarke.