Head Against the Wall

68
  • Genre(s):Drama
  • Release year: 1959
  • Running time: 95 min
An intense study of the clash between medical ideals, the first full-length work from Georges Franju ( Les yeux sans visage , Judex ) is a gripping examination of postwar psychiatric care, boasting a memorable cast including Pierre Brasseur, Anouk...read more

An intense study of the clash between medical ideals, the first full-length work from Georges Franju ( Les yeux sans visage , Judex ) is a gripping examination of postwar psychiatric care, boasting a memorable cast including Pierre Brasseur, Anouk Aimée, Charles Aznavour, Paul Meurisse, and Jean-Pierre Mocky. Mocky plays François Gérane, an aimless young man whose delinquent tendencies cause his father to have him committed to a psychiatric ward. There, under the cold command of Dr. Varmont (Brasseur), he finds himself fighting for his dignity, sanity, and freedom, barely holding on through the new-found love of his girlfriend Stephanie (Aimée) and the promise of rival Dr. Emery's (Meurisse) more humane techniques. Compassionate yet unflinching, La Tête contre les murs is a bold precursor to the likes of Samuel Fuller's Shock Corridor and Milos Forman's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest , revealing Franju's poetic gift for creating images both concrete and evocative, and an ominous hint of the clinical horrors yet to come in Les yeux sans visage .

Original Release

03/20/1959

US Release

04/04/1959

Cast

(see additional cast & crew)

Directors

Georges Franju

Writers

Jean-Pierre Mocky, Hervé Bazin, Jean-Charles Pichon

Cast

Producers

Editors

Suzanne Sandberg

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