***SPOILERS*** It's when his boss the eccentric and wealthy Mrs. Amelia Townsend, Betrice Grenough, started messing with his beloved plants that her Gardner all around handy man, as well as chauffeur, the not so stable Martin Ashley, Roddy McDowell, ended up decapitating her with a pair of garden shears. Turning himself into the police and not defending his murderous action Ashley is later declared insane and sent to a mental institution until he's deemed to be normal by a battery of court appointed psychiatrists.
It's the late Mrs. Townsend's good friend millionaire Harley Manning, Judson Laire, who smelled a rat in her murderer Martin Ashley getting off so easy and that rat was non other then Ashley's court appointed psychologist Dr. Edwina Beighley, Lauren Bacall. It was Dr. Beighley's testimony on Ashley's behalf that save him, by Ashley being committed into Dr. Beighley's mental institution, from either the San Quentin gas chamber or a life sentence behind bars. Feeling that there's something more to Dr. Beighley's concern in keeping Ashley in her mental institution then just curing him! Manning gives $10,000.00 to struggling actor Dale Nelson, Stuart Whitman, so he could fake his way, by acting crazy, into Dr. Beighley's "funny farm" as well as learning all about plants and flowers in order to get close to the flower and plant lover Martin Ashley! And thus find out what kind of relationship he had with Dr. Beighley in order for her to be so good to him! And as Nelson was soon to find out it had nothing to do with romance. It did in fact have a lot to do with the late Mrs. Townsend's missing million dollars!
Much like the Samuel Fuller 1963 classic "Shock Corridor" the film "Shock Treatment" has to do with a man going undercover in a mental institution to get to the truth about a crime that was committed by one of its inmates. And at the same time almost ending up losing his mind in doing so! Nelson tries to get close to Ashley by claiming to be a "flower child" like himself but Ashley instinctively knows that he's only putting him on and refuses to play along with him. It's in fact the very shrewd and manipulative Dr. Beighley who finally gets Ashley to open up, with him spending 31 hours on the coach being psychoanalyzed by her, and tell her what she so desperately want's to know. Where Mrs. Townsend's million is!
***SPOILERS*** Nelson is later found out by Dr. Beighley to have been "planted" in her mental institution by her sworn enemy Haley Manning who's out to have her license revoked for unethical and unprofessional conduct. Being put under shock treatment and psychotic drugs Nelson somehow is able to escape from Dr. Beighley institution only to find out that the very person who can prove his innocence in being normal, not psychotic, Haley Manning had just died! This sets the audience up for the shocking surprise at the end of the film in where the buried million, dug up by both Ashley & Dr.Beighley, was hidden! Yes it was there all right just like Ashley said it would be but the condition that it was in was quite another matter!
It's the late Mrs. Townsend's good friend millionaire Harley Manning, Judson Laire, who smelled a rat in her murderer Martin Ashley getting off so easy and that rat was non other then Ashley's court appointed psychologist Dr. Edwina Beighley, Lauren Bacall. It was Dr. Beighley's testimony on Ashley's behalf that save him, by Ashley being committed into Dr. Beighley's mental institution, from either the San Quentin gas chamber or a life sentence behind bars. Feeling that there's something more to Dr. Beighley's concern in keeping Ashley in her mental institution then just curing him! Manning gives $10,000.00 to struggling actor Dale Nelson, Stuart Whitman, so he could fake his way, by acting crazy, into Dr. Beighley's "funny farm" as well as learning all about plants and flowers in order to get close to the flower and plant lover Martin Ashley! And thus find out what kind of relationship he had with Dr. Beighley in order for her to be so good to him! And as Nelson was soon to find out it had nothing to do with romance. It did in fact have a lot to do with the late Mrs. Townsend's missing million dollars!
Much like the Samuel Fuller 1963 classic "Shock Corridor" the film "Shock Treatment" has to do with a man going undercover in a mental institution to get to the truth about a crime that was committed by one of its inmates. And at the same time almost ending up losing his mind in doing so! Nelson tries to get close to Ashley by claiming to be a "flower child" like himself but Ashley instinctively knows that he's only putting him on and refuses to play along with him. It's in fact the very shrewd and manipulative Dr. Beighley who finally gets Ashley to open up, with him spending 31 hours on the coach being psychoanalyzed by her, and tell her what she so desperately want's to know. Where Mrs. Townsend's million is!
***SPOILERS*** Nelson is later found out by Dr. Beighley to have been "planted" in her mental institution by her sworn enemy Haley Manning who's out to have her license revoked for unethical and unprofessional conduct. Being put under shock treatment and psychotic drugs Nelson somehow is able to escape from Dr. Beighley institution only to find out that the very person who can prove his innocence in being normal, not psychotic, Haley Manning had just died! This sets the audience up for the shocking surprise at the end of the film in where the buried million, dug up by both Ashley & Dr.Beighley, was hidden! Yes it was there all right just like Ashley said it would be but the condition that it was in was quite another matter!