Directed by Douglas Sirk. Written by Helen Deutsch and Samuel Fuller
Jenny’s in an unenviable position. She’s out on parole after serving five years for murdering a man, and one misstep will see her back in jail for life. Her parole officer, essentially God as far as she’s concerned, must draw breath several times to list all the rules she mustn’t break, and he has a rule of his own, too: don’t fraternize with her former lover, the man she killed for.
Guess who won’t leave her alone? Yeah, that guy. Guess who falls in love, and professes his feelings for her? Yeah, the parole officer.
We’ll see how far the parole officer will go to help her stay on the straight and narrow, ignoring the crime they’d be committing by getting together, of course, and this frustrated love story was meant to be a romantic premise in 1949 when Shockproof was released, long before we learned to understand power dynamics.
Douglas Sirk would become a melodrama master over the following decade and a half, but he’s already revealing his affinity here in what’s ostensibly a noir about a murder, extortion, and questions of right and wrong, even if those wrongs are not those that immediately suggest themselves.
The tumultuous romance between Patricia Knight and Cornel Wilde as Jenny and parole officer Griff Morat has all the hallmarks of a melodrama affair, oozing angst, overwhelming affection, and grand declarations, but it doesn’t elevate the noir elements and transform Sirk’s movie into something fresh and different.
It actually dulls things, makes them safer and less provocative, going so far as even making gangster bad guys who aren’t all that vicious, and can see reason if you give them long enough. When movies from this period are hardly surprising to begin with, it makes Shockproof descriptive of your viewing experience.
Cornel Wilde’s problematic parole officer is a bit of perfect casting, however. Wilde’s short curly hair and big round eyes mean there’s a boyish look to him, sincere and upstanding, and our initial introduction to Griff as a go-getter and great officer with political aspirations rings true. Wilde then proves himself capable of a certain darkness as Griff debases himself in pursuit of Jenny, showing an alternate side to Wilde, whose mouth turns cruel and eyes fiery.
Griff’s downturn feels novel today, this story of a righteous, confident man who throws his moral compass in the trash, because we’re not as keen on characters with strong convictions in dramas, favoring protagonists who have room for doubt, face tribulation and usually rise to the occasion within a familiar realm of possibilities.
This little wriggle isn’t enough for me to demand that you watch Shockproof though, as it’s a just-okay film that does have a few nice shots, a bleeding heart pumping within it, and a curious premise. It all might even translate into something romantic if it hadn’t given you the ick from the get-go.
Mikkel Frederiksen 