One of those early 1960s true-to-life docudramas and a dull one at that. Directed with limited style by Hall Bartlett and featuring the not so exciting Robert Stack in the lead role doom this film. Stack is a doctor at a mental hospital matching wits with by-the-book head nurse Joan Crawford. Crawford, who has no patience for Stack's newfangled approach to treatment, looks like a modern day Medusa with a mountain of multi-colored hair piled high atop her head. There are scenes of hysteria, shock treatment and more than one soul baring group therapy sequence. The patients include Polly Bergen, Janet Paige, Sharon Hugueny, Ellen Corby and Barbara Barrie as a catatonic who kills the ward's pet bird. Herbert Marshall plays the head of the hospital and Van Williams is Stack's trusty assistant. Diane McBain, Robert Vaughn and Constance Ford are in the cast too. The faux jazz score is by Elmer Bernstein and the stark, Oscar-nominated B&W cinematography is by Lucien Ballard.
Review of The Caretakers
