# Bedlam (1946 film)
**Bedlam** is a 1946 American black-and-white drama-horror film directed by Mark Robson and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Radio Pictures, starring [Boris Karloff](https://www.edgepedia.org/boris-karloff) and [Anna Lee](https://www.edgepedia.org/anna-lee) in a story set in London's notorious Bethlem Hospital, known as Bedlam, in 1761.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) It was the last of Lewton's horror films for RKO and his final collaboration with Karloff.[2](https://www.classic-monsters.com/bedlam-rko-1946/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Release | 10 May 1946, RKO Radio Pictures; working titles *Chamber of Horrors* and *A Tale of Bedlam*[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) |
| Production dates | July 18 to August 17, 1945[3](https://vallewton.org/val-lewton-movies.php) |
| Credits | Directed by Mark Robson; produced by Val Lewton; screenplay by Carlos Keith (Lewton's pseudonym) and Mark Robson; cinematography by Nicholas Musuraca; music by Roy Webb[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) • [4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam) |
| Lead cast | Boris Karloff (Master George Sims), Anna Lee (Nell Bowen), Billy House (Lord Mortimer), Jason Robards Sr. (Oliver Todd), Ian Wolfe (Sidney Long)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) |
| Source of inspiration | William Hogarth's *A Rake's Progress*, final plate depicting the madhouse; Hogarth received a credit in the film's titles[2](https://www.classic-monsters.com/bedlam-rko-1946/) |
| Setting | London, 1761, at St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam) |
| Reception | Not well received by critics or the public on original release; reappraised in later decades as a feminist horror film[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story opens in London in 1761, when people of the eighteenth century called their era the Age of Reason. Nell Bowen (Anna Lee), an actress and protégée of the aristocratic Lord Mortimer (Billy House), tours St. Mary's of Bethlehem Asylum, where inmates were treated as curiosities by wealthy visitors. Horrified by the conditions, and after one young patient dies from gold paint applied for an entertainment staged by the asylum's master, she campaigns for reform. The sadistic Master George Sims (Boris Karloff) frustrates her by telling Mortimer that reforms would cost £500 in taxes, and then has Nell committed to Bedlam itself on a trumped-up charge after her meddling threatens him.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM)
Inside the asylum, supported by the Quaker stonemason William Hannay (Richard Fraser), Nell comes to understand the patients' needs and retains her sanity while caring for the less dangerous inmates.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) The inmates eventually gain control of the asylum, and the story reaches a grimly violent conclusion.[5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038343/) A closing written statement notes that reforms at Bedlam were begun in 1773 and that a new, exemplary hospital was erected shortly afterward.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM)
## Production
Producer Val Lewton (1904–1951) ran a celebrated series of low-budget horror films at RKO in the 1940s, working with directors Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise, and Mark Robson. *Bedlam* was his last RKO production.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) Filming ran from July 18 to August 17, 1945.[3](https://vallewton.org/val-lewton-movies.php)
The film departs from the earlier Lewton productions by focusing on historical social conditions rather than supernatural occurrences. Its screenplay was inspired by [William Hogarth](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-hogarth)'s painting of Bedlam, the final plate of his eight-picture series *A Rake's Progress*, and Hogarth was credited in the titles; his paintings were also used as transitional devices in the picture, though these devices were cut from television prints.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) According to a report in *Life*, Lewton reused a church set built for RKO's *[The Bells of St. Mary's](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-bells-of-st-marys)* (1945) for the asylum interior, and Anna Lee wore in one scene one of [Vivien Leigh](https://www.edgepedia.org/vivien-leigh)'s dresses from *Gone With the Wind* (1939).[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam)
## Historical background
The film's setting draws on the real Bethlem Hospital, London's famous institution for the insane, founded in 1247 as the Priory of St Mary of Bethlehem in Bishopsgate. Londoners shortened the name to Bethlem and pronounced it Bedlam, and by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the word had become a general term for confusion and disorder.[6](https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1050-1485/from-bethlehem-to-bedlam/) Public visiting of the hospital, in which Londoners paid to see the inmates, was permitted until 1770, the practice the film depicts as the gilded-boy entertainment at Lord Mortimer's banquet.[7](https://museumofthemind.org.uk/learning/visiting-bethlem) The character of Master Sims is fictitious, but he borrows from the notorious head physician at the real Bethlem, John Monro.[2](https://www.classic-monsters.com/bedlam-rko-1946/) The film's claim that reforms began in 1773 fits a history in which public visiting was ended in 1770 and, in 1815, a parliamentary inquiry led to the dismissal of the hospital's principal officers.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) • [7](https://museumofthemind.org.uk/learning/visiting-bethlem)
## Reception and legacy
The film was not well received by critics or the public at its original release.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam) *TIME* in May 1946 acknowledged that Lewton and Robson wring effective moments of pity and horror from the lunatics, and that the melodrama serves serious purposes, attacking the callous self-delusions of the Age of Reason, but judged that the film's horror and high-mindedness do not always blend smoothly.[8](https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2C776904%2C00.html) A 1946 trade roundup similarly judged the film's promise largely unrealized.[9](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/newmoviesnationa1920nati-1946-02/newmoviesnationa1920nati-1946-02.pdf)
Later commentary has treated *Bedlam* more generously. The Edinburgh Film Guild's program notes call it a stunning conclusion to the vaunted series of B-movies Lewton oversaw at RKO, made just after the revelation of the Holocaust's horrors and concerned with society's tendency to classify some people as subhuman.[10](https://edinburghfilmguild.org.uk/2010-11/bedlam.pdf) TCM's essay argues it can be appreciated today as a feminist horror film: the central character is punished for her intelligence and outspoken nature at a time when women had few rights, and the male authorities' response is to brand her a lunatic and lock her up.[4](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam)
## Availability
In the United States the film carries an R rating from its later certification and circulates in a 76-minute television cut of a film timed at 78 to 80 minutes in archival records and 79 minutes in Lewton filmographies.[11](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/bedlam) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM) • [3](https://vallewton.org/val-lewton-movies.php) As of 2026 it streams on [YouTube TV](https://www.edgepedia.org/youtube-tv) and TCM and can be rented or bought on Amazon Video, the Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home, with viewers rating it 6.8 out of 10 on [JustWatch](https://www.edgepedia.org/justwatch) from about 4,800 ratings.[11](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/bedlam)
## Later films with the same title
The title has since been used again. A British period action thriller, also called *Bedlam*, directed by Jon Shaikh and starring [Scott Adkins](https://www.edgepedia.org/scott-adkins) as a bare-knuckle boxer who infiltrates the 1750s asylum to rescue his sister, completed production and was sold to territories by Capture Entertainment at the February 2025 European Film Market, with a listed running time of 108 minutes and a scheduled year of 2027.[12](https://rupertstreetfilms.squarespace.com/news/bedlamsd) • [13](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/index.php/projects/bedlam-2)
## References
1. [Bedlam (1946), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/24689-BEDLAM)
2. [Bedlam (RKO 1946), Classic Monsters](https://www.classic-monsters.com/bedlam-rko-1946/)
3. [Movies of Val Lewton, vallewton.org](https://vallewton.org/val-lewton-movies.php)
4. [Bedlam, by Jeff Stafford, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/453/bedlam)
5. [Bedlam (1946), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0038343/)
6. [From Bethlehem to Bedlam: England's First Mental Institution, Historic England](https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1050-1485/from-bethlehem-to-bedlam/)
7. [Visiting Bethlem, Bethlem Museum of the Mind](https://museumofthemind.org.uk/learning/visiting-bethlem)
8. [The New Pictures, May 27, 1946, TIME](https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2C776904%2C00.html)
9. [New Movies, February 1946, Library of Congress](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/public/gdcmassbookdig/newmoviesnationa1920nati-1946-02/newmoviesnationa1920nati-1946-02.pdf)
10. [Val Lewton Programme Notes: Bedlam, Edinburgh Film Guild (2010)](https://edinburghfilmguild.org.uk/2010-11/bedlam.pdf)
11. [Bedlam streaming: where to watch movie online, JustWatch](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/bedlam)
12. [Scott Adkins thriller 'Bedlam' sells to key territories as production wraps, Rupert Street Films](https://rupertstreetfilms.squarespace.com/news/bedlamsd)
13. [Bedlam project detail, British Council UK Films Database](https://filmsandfestivals.britishcouncil.org/index.php/projects/bedlam-2)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Gothic horror films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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