Roger Corman was always pestered to make "serious" films and it's forgotten he did - this was his stab at Ingmar Bergman territory, made at New World, with classier talent, from a famous book. I think he was hoping for his own One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
I'm not sure Anthony Page is Milos Forman or Kathleen Quinlan is Jack Nicholson but everyone's really trying to make a good movie. Quinlan is absolutely fine... she goes there... but she's not a star. Jodie Foster, who Corman at one stage wanted, would've been better. Not Quinslan's fault.
Susan Tyrell impresses in a flashy support role as a patient. Sylvia Sidney's there too.
But main issue with film IMHO - lack of a strong core relationship. There's Quinlan and shrink Bibi Andersson but that's just shrink patient, really - it doesn't have impact on the shrink in the way say Equus did. Doesn't have a core relationship the way Cuckoo's Nest did with McMurphy and Chief and Ratched. There's a woman at the end who might be Quinlan's future lover/friend but that feels rushed. I think the movie needed to fix around three or so solid relationships, have these give it narrative, and it would've been fine.
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