This is a delightfully unintentionally funny melodrama with an over-the-top Lauren Bacall obviously not holding back, and playing the heads psychiatrist at a mental institution who to put it mildly has a lot of problems and more than a few agendas. With Stuart Whitman, Roddy McDowell and Carol Lynley, I'm surprised there was any scenery by the end of the film left. This film has some really shocking moments that had me dropping my jaw one second and laughing hysterically at the next. It's a deliciously fun bad movie that is a bit tacky in the melodramatic way it deals with its subject matter, and Bacall's character is definitely not doing the psychiatic profession any favors with the way she is written. It's easy to see why Bacall found this to be one of her worst movies.
The problem with the film as a whole is that it often starts dealing with one subject that is completely forgotten as the film moves on. A group of patients are on a bus on their way to the hospital and a beautiful black lady stands up and begins to perform a striptease, stopped by the matron who simply explains that she won't be making any money because it's not officially showtime. The movie reminds me of "The Caretakers" which starred Joan Crawford the year before, but where that film has a few camp moments, they are not as outrageous as this one. It is a film that has to be seen to be believed and an ending that is both jaw-dropping and shocking.
The problem with the film as a whole is that it often starts dealing with one subject that is completely forgotten as the film moves on. A group of patients are on a bus on their way to the hospital and a beautiful black lady stands up and begins to perform a striptease, stopped by the matron who simply explains that she won't be making any money because it's not officially showtime. The movie reminds me of "The Caretakers" which starred Joan Crawford the year before, but where that film has a few camp moments, they are not as outrageous as this one. It is a film that has to be seen to be believed and an ending that is both jaw-dropping and shocking.