Spellbound (1945)

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Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Starring Jean Acker, Ingrid Bergman, Leo G. Carroll, Donald Curtis, Rhonda Fleming, Gregory Peck, Regis Toomey, Norman Lloyd.

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The staff of a posh mental asylum eagerly awaits the arrival of the new director. When the man in question shows up, it turns out to be handsome psychiatrist Gregory Peck. But something's wrong, here: Peck seems much too young for so important a position; his answers to the staff's questions are vague and detached; and he seems unusually distressed by the parallel marks, left by a fork, on a white tablecloth. Doctor Peterson Ingrid Bergman comes to the correct conclusion that Peck is not the new director, but a profoundly disturbed amnesiac--and, possibly, the murderer of the real director. Gradually falling in love with Peck, Bergman begins fearing for his well-being; she and Peck leave the asylum, hiding out in the home of her mentor, psychoanalyst Michael Chekhov. Though Chekhov warns that she might be protecting a killer, Bergman believes in Peck's innocence, and attempts throughout the remaining reels to get to the root of his emotional problems. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

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5 Favorite Amnesia Movies
by SpoutBlog in SpoutBlog on spout.com

hasn't rated it.

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"Over at the AMC blog SciFi Scanner, there’s a post about the accuracy of Jason Bourne’s condition in the Bourne movies. At the World Science Festival, held last weekend in NYC, there was a panel titled The Brain and Bourne: Neuroscience in the Bourne Trilogy that featured Bourne Identity director Doug Liman and psychiatrist and neuroscientist Giulio Tononi. And according to Tononi, the sort of amnesia that Bourne suffers from, which includes the ability to retain certain skills despite an overall loss of memory, is rare but does exist. Interesting, but does it really matter? Nobody making the Bourne movies seems to have known its accuracy, and they probably didn’t care. And neither do most moviegoers. Amnesia is simply a good plot device for movies, and oftentimes they’re more about something else than the condition, accurate or not. So, here’s a list of some of my favorite movies with amnesia at its forefront, plus the respective reasons for my not caring if they are realistic or ... " [More]

Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Al ...
by Ovation in Alfred Hitchcock

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"Peter Bogdanovich Interviews Alfred Hitchcock The legendary interview from 1963 PB: You never watch your films with an audience. Don't you miss hearing them scream? AH: No. I can hear them when I'm making the picture. Do you feel that the American film remains the most vital cinema? Worldwide, yes. Because when we make films for the United States, we are automatically making them for all the world--because America is full of foreigners. It's a melting pot. Which brings us to another point. I don't know what they mean when they talk about "Hollywood" pictures. I say, "Where are they conceived?" Look at this room--you can't see out the windows. We might just as well be in a hotel room in London, or anywhere you like. So here is where we get it down on paper. Now where do we go? We go on location, perhaps; and then where do we work? We're ... " [More]

Spellbound
by MovieBabe in MovieBabe Blog

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"You've gotta love a movie that has a "psychiatric adviser" among its crew members. In Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 Spellbound, everyone is fluent in psychobabble and dreams are analyzed within an inch of their subconscious lives. Ingrid Bergman stars as psychiatrist Constance Peterson, who transforms from frigid doctor to silly, lovesick girly-girl faster than she can shed her Freudian slip. Gregory Peck plays her dashing but confused love interest, who is perfect except for his tendencies to freak out at the sight of dark lines and hiss at Constance that if there's anything he hates, it's a smug woman. Oh, and he also dreams of melted wheels and curtains decorated with gigantic eyes: Spellbound's famed dream sequence was designed by Salvador Dali, and even those with only a passing familiarity with his work will recognize the Dali touch. That psychiatric adviser must have been in heaven. " [More]

Review by All Movie Guide

All Movie Guide

liked it.

Behind a veil of psychoanalytic babble lies a simple tale of murder in Alfred Hitchcock's popular thriller Spellbound. During the WWII era in which the film was released, it was heralded for its intellectual use of Freudian theories to solve a murder. In retrospect, however, the film reveals psychoanalytic ideas that are simplistic and obsolete to the point of becoming comical. In spite of this, Hitchcock's tremendous ability to create suspense remains a timeless one and the film's thriller elements, combined with a series of outstanding visuals, bring Spellbound within a notch of the director's best works. The psychological elements allowed Hitchcock to be creative visually and he went to the best, hiring artist Salvador Dali to design a series of incredibly eerie dream sequences. Sadly, only a few of Dali's wonderful creations made the final cut while the others were either lost or destroyed. Hitchcock often spoke of one particularly fantastic sequence in which a statue cracked and fell apart, revealing star Ingrid Bergman beneath it. The climactic suicide scene in which the villain, having been revealed, decides to kill himself is another example of Hitchcock's willingness to experiment. Seen from the killer's perspective, the scene shows him turning the gun on himself and firing it right into the camera. The explosion appears in red and was hand-tinted onto the black-and-white image. Gregory Peck is a strong male lead playing the protagonist whose disturbed mind holds the key to the entire mystery, but Bergman steals the show as his love-struck shrink, a woman mistakenly described by one of her peers as "a human glacier." Spellbound was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor (Michael Chekhov), but went on to win for Miklos Rozsa's chilling score. Hitchcock's cameo arrives at the film's 38-minute mark, when the director can be seen exiting an elevator. ~ Patrick Legare, All Movie Guide

Tags: Classic , dali , ingrid-bergman , gregory-peck , eyes
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