Headshrinker Noir: 10 Films With Mind Games, Crime

Ingrid Bergman, "Spellbound" (1945).

From Dedicated Healers 

to Evil Control Freaks,

Noir Psychiatrists 

Want to Pick Your Brain

By Paul Parcellin

Do all psychiatrists intentionally drive their patients insane and force them to commit awful crimes? In real life it’s unlikely … probably. But in film noir it’s a 50-50 bet. Not that all noir psychiatrists are the same, but they tend to fall into specific groups. One variety is the saintly crusader who tends to be hyper dedicated to healing the afflicted — he or she not only eases troubled minds, but fights crime, too.

Another type is the bumbling screwball, who may be well meaning but often does more damage than good.

Blonde Ice (1948).

Then there's the diabolical narcissist who uses his powers to tap into a patient’s subconscious for wicked purposes. He preys on the vulnerable, who are easy to influence and can be set up as patsies for murder or made to commit crimes. Hypnosis, psychoanalysis and drugs are the tools an evil psyche uses to pry open heads and sprinkle toxic dust inside.

Here is a handful of noirs with shrinks, good and bad. There are many other noirs that focus on psychiatry and mental anguish. Feel free to suggest titles in the comments:

The Good Doctors

Robert Paige, Leslie Brooks, “Blonde Ice.”
She’s full of surprises, none of them good.

“Blonde Ice” (1948)

The film’s icy blonde femme fatale, a shameless gold digger, mercilessly strings along a masochistic suitor. In a moment of clarity he describes her succinctly when he blurts out, “You’re not warm, you’re cold, like ice.” Ignore the hackneyed dialog because he’s got a point. But “cold” doesn’t begin to describe this fair-haired heart crusher. “Psychopath” is a better fit.

She’s a classic femme fatale who uses her womanly charms to get what she wants. When she enters a room the guys’ tongues are hanging out. She’s a dish and she knows it 

But a former police psychiatrist is hip to the blonde’s true self. He’s seen oodles of charming cutthroats like her. She’s neurotically fixated on power and wealth, a kind of one-woman wrecking crew lacking a shred of moral fiber. She compulsively pursues men of stature and wealth and then disposes of them. Her ebony dresses remind us of a black widow spider. 

Did she have a rough childhood? You betcha, and it may have molded her into the ruthless she-wolf in a mink coat that she’s become. As for the good doctor, he unmasks her and that makes her mighty unhappy, and when she’s unhappy, bad things occur. 

Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Ryan, “Caught.”

“ Caught” (1949)


A car hop gets a taste of the sweet life and it turns to ashes in her mouth. She dreams of a life of mink and diamonds, then meets an overbearing wealthy businessman who dates her but has no intention of making a commitment. That is, until his psychiatrist points out his tendency toward flirtations that never lead to anything permanent. The mogul’s contrarian attitude leads him to marry the girl simply to prove the psychiatrist wrong. Wedded life thereafter is miserable for both parties, and it gets worse when she lands a job as a receptionist for a pediatrician and gets involved with the doc. Here are two takeaways from all this: Don’t do anything rash just to prove your shrink wrong, and secondly, listen carefully to the good advice that you’re paying for. It could save you a lot of trouble.

William Holden, Lee J. Cobb, “The Dark Past.”

“The Dark Past” (1948)

A police psychiatrist recounts a harrowing experience he had when an escaped convict held the psychiatrist and others hostage in a country home. The documentary style film is told in flashback as the psychiatrists recalls why he decided to leave the teaching profession and work with the police. Over the course of one evening the psychiatrist analyzes the escapee’s childhood trauma and manages to cure his recurring emotional disorder. The film makes a case for early psychiatric intervention for youthful offenders, claiming that delinquency can be nipped in the bud when proper treatment is applied. It seems to work well in the movie, at least. 

The Quacks

Dana Andrews, Lee J. Cobb, “Boomerang!”. 

“Boomerang!” (1947)


A police psychiatrist plays a marginal role in a preliminary hearing for an accused murderer. The story begins when someone shoots a priest point blank in the head for no apparent reason, although the film offers a theory on the killer’s identity. Flashing back to a time before the murder took place, the clergyman tells a mentally troubled man that he intends to have him committed to an institution. He’s probably the trigger man, but that question is never fully answered. Presented documentary style, the film is based on a true story of a murder in a Connecticut town. An innocent man is arrested and brought to a preliminary hearing where the psychiatrist and others testify, and it looks like the defendant’s goose is cooked. A state’s attorney investigates and finds that there are troubling holes in the prosecutor’s case. Although he plays a minor role, the psychiatrist gets a demerit here for a flimsy evaluation of the accused man. He’s more than willing to rubber stamp the man as guilty without a thorough examination. The film is more about small town politics than psychological motivations behind crime. Suffice it to say that it’s best to steer clear of this quack.

Edward G. Robinson, “Night Has a Thousand Eyes.” 

“Night Has a Thousand Eyes” (1948)

A phony psychic suddenly gets true psychic premonitions and his newfound power brings him only misery. He can foresee the deaths of others and that makes him a suspect in the murder of his former vaudeville partner. After predicting the death of the former partner’s daughter, the psychic becomes the focus of a police investigation. A pair of university psychologists are brought in to evaluate the seer, but they can’t rule out the possibility that the psychic has genuine extrasensory powers. They remain skeptical, but they’re unable to explain the weird predictions that come to pass.

Bad Sanitariums

Lucille Bremer, Richard Carlson, Douglas Fowley, “Behind Locked Doors.”  

“Behind Locked Doors” (1948)

Evil psychiatrists employed in mental institutions are a subset of headshrinkers. Like their office and couch brethren, they possess a frightening amount of power over those in their care. In “Behind Locked Doors,” a newspaperwoman hires a private detective to be committed to a sanitarium. Inside the locked ward, a corrupt judge on the lam from justice is holed up, and the newswoman means to flush him out. As the private dick soon learns, in this institution psychiatry is a tool of the corrupt, where a patient can be kept on ice after stepping on the wrong sets of toes. The sanitarium director, terrified that his aiding and abetting of a criminal could end his career, is nevertheless beholden to the judge, whose political pull got him his job. 

The very real danger for a mole inside an institution is that the psychiatrist is also his jailer. It’s easy and tempting to keep a patient under observation for the financial benefit of it. Sane or not, you may have a long wait for release.

Peter Breck, “Shock Corridor.”

“Shock Corridor” (1963)

Journalist Johnny Barrett aims to expose poor conditions in an institution for the mentally ill, and he also intends to identify a killer at large in that sanitarium. But he’s not entirely motivated by altruism. He wants a Pulitzer, and he’s willing to have himself committed to a sanitarium to earn it. He uses a psychiatrist friend to help him prep for an undercover operation, walking him through drills that will help him convince doctors that he’s mentally ill.  

Like the sanitarium director in “Behind Locked Doors,” this one uses his power as a doctor to keep a lid on a big secret. Driven by the fear of tarnishing the institution’s reputation and losing any of the joint’s lucrative patient population, the sanitarium director covers up the murder of a patient named Sloan. 

Johnny’s exotic dancer girlfriend is dead against the undercover scheme, but reluctantly aids him. She poses as his sister and both pretend that he harbors an unnatural sexual attraction to her. She swears out a complaint against him and sees to it that he’s committed to the institution where the murder took place.

She worries that the punishing tests he’s subjected to will drive him insane, and she’s not wrong. Here, we have a facility overseen by a corrupt director and managed by an immoral staff where the treatments are as damaging as the trauma that brings patients to the facility in the first place.  

Leo G. Carroll, Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman, “Spellbound.”  

“Spellbound” (1945)

In making “Spellbound,” Alfred Hitchcock employed a psychiatric advisor and hired Salvador Dali to create a dream sequence, making it a richly detailed film about mental illness, psychiatry and sanitariums.  

The setting is a sanitarium, and we meet a sadistic and seductive female patient who tries to sweet talk an attendant before gouging his hand with her sharp nails. Other patients include a suicidal man with delusions that he killed his father. Both cases, a charming predator and a man paralyzed with guilt are two personality types upon which the story is built.  

The outgoing director of the sanitarium has been dismissed after showing signs of senility, and he’s to be replaced by Dr. Anthony Edwardes. The new director gets off to a rocky start with his inappropriately angry outburst. Dr. Constance Petersen, an attractive, buttoned-down staff psychiatrist, uses the tines of a fork to draw a diagram on a snowy white table linen. Edwardes inexplicably loses his cool and makes a bit of a fool of himself. 

Petersen is a reserved rationalist. She deflects another colleague’s advances and he refers to her as the human glacier. She keeps her emotions in check and puts the brakes on when Edwardes nearly immediate attempts to woo her. But it doesn’t take long for him to break through her wall of resistance. 

The trouble is, Edwardes’s emotional outbursts are signs of deeply repressed memories and amnesia, and before long both he and Petersen will be questioning his true identity. To make matters worse, there’s been a murder committed and Edwardes is the likely culprit. 

Kleptomaniac Patients

Robert Mitchum, Laraine Day, “The Locket” (1946).  

“The Locket” (1946)

Kleptomania is just one of the psychological afflictions taking center stage in “The Locket,” a story about a woman with sticky fingers for shiny objects who just can’t be trusted. On her wedding day her psychiatrist ex-husband steps forward to unmask her as a sociopath before she can exchange wedding vows. Her fiancé listens incredulously as the shrink fills him in on the lady’s history. It turns out that swiping rich ladies’ jewelry isn’t the half of her misdeeds. Charming and manipulative, she commits a heinous act and leaves a falsely accused domestic servant holding the bag. The upshot is that she’s such a highly polished liar she fools her psychiatrist husband. 

The film is a marvel of complex flashbacks, nested within flashbacks. The psychiatrist tells the groom a tale that we see in a flashback. In it, a visitor tells him of his association with the bride to be, and in that flashback she tells of her traumatic childhood, and we see that in yet another flashback. According to her version of the story, wealthy, abusive high society types (one of whom is the source of her childhood trauma) are the villains. 

Each flashback offers a new layer to ponder, but we don’t witness a story taking place in the present, we hear others’ recollections of the facts which may or may not be reliable. Still, the story we see is enough to give you pause on your wedding day.   


 José Ferrer, Gene Tierney, “Whirlpool” (1950).  

“Whirlpool” (1950)

Psychiatrist Dr. William Sutton is in a battle with smooth-talking hypnotist David Korvo over the well being of the doctor’s wife, Ann. She has the embarrassing habit of shoplifting goods from local stores, and one day she gets caught. Korvo happens to be on the scene and he fast-talks her out of the jam and persuades her to let him treat her neurosis. 

The quack therapist hypnotizes Ann, allegedly to treat her insomnia, and he promises to address her kleptomania, as well. Although her husband is a highly respected psychiatrist, she’s embarrassed to tell him about her problems, and Korvo offers her a way to keep it all on the down low. 

Both she and Korvo are alike, in a way. They both share a disdain for the people who tend to their needs, the waiters and housekeepers whom they order around with little tact. Ann lives a comfortable life, and her rough treatment of the domestic help seems more a byproduct of her inner turmoil than a mark of entitlement. Korvo, on the other hand, is mean and manipulative when none of his wealthy clients are watching. He can turn on the charm at will when there’s a fat pocketbook to be picked, and all the while he plots sinister ways to take advantage of Ann’s weaknesses.

“Whirlpool” is a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of seeking help from a charlatan, and reassures us that genuine psychiatry offers legitimate treatment. 

After enduring a life threatening ordeal, Ann and her husband get to the bottom of her psychological conflicts, although it happens too quickly and easily to be believed. But after escaping Korvo’s clutches she’s earned the right to a happy ending.