Spellbound - Criterion Collection (1945)

Spellbound is spellbinding

Not the greatest Hitchcock film, but ironically it has four of Hitchcock's greatest sequences, all of them mind benders as befits a crime story about headshrinkers gone rotten. The famous Salvador Dali dream sequence is everything it has become famous for, a spectacularly subtle and understated seduction sequence - itself almost a dream - and the famous single frame "red flash" at the climactic confrontation. The film is in black and white yet Hitchcock and Selznick induced the company to insert a single or pair of red frames at humongous expense in a subliminal bit that freaked the audiences. This is called power in Hollywood. For the next 40 years nobody restored the red flash - until Turner and Criterion did the disk - too ridiculously expensive for B&w prints and VHS.
And the score - fabulous! One of the best which makes four great reasons to see the film. July 28, 2008

The touches are here:

the suspenseful off screen murder, camera angles, a cool, classy leading lady & let's not forget the obligatory train scene. A typical Hitchcock psychological thriller. This time, literally. Salvadore Dali was brought in for some surealistic dream sequences. Ingrid Bergman is the beautiful shrink Dr. Peterson. Gregory Peck arrives as her new boss, Dr. Anthony Edwards. Or is he? The real Dr. Edwards has been killed & Peck has assumed his identity. He thinks he may be the killer. One problem. He has amnesia. But Dr. Peterson, up to this time, an ice princess has warmed to Peck & doesn't believe he could have done it. She has fallen in love with him & they spend the rest of the movie trying prove his innocence. It's easy to figure out who the murderer but it's a well done, entertaining movie in any case. I saw this movie only once & don't have a copy. I missed Hictcock's cameo. Any help? November 20, 2007

Spellbound

Intriguing and mystifying, this "manhunt story" (as the director described it) is pickled in a heady dose of psychoanalytic dialogue, thanks in part to producer David O. Selznick, an ardent Freudian. Aside from Hitchcock's peerless handling of both the suspense surrounding J.B.'s identity and the love tryst that develops between Peck and Bergman, "Spellbound" remains celebrated because of the unforgettable dream sequence designed by Surrealist artist Salvador Dali (and directed by William Cameron Menzies). For sheer thrills and hypnotic weirdness, all enhanced by Miklos Rozsa's unsettling, Oscar-winning theremin score, "Spellbound" is hard to beat. June 25, 2007

Not my favorite Hitchflick by a long shot.

Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945)

I often feel like an iconoclast when it comes to Alfred Hitchcock movies. While some of them are brilliant, I have found that the ones most loved by critics everywhere leave me not cold, exactly, but wondering what all the fuss is about. Spellbound joins these ranks. It's a good movie, to be certain, but one of the best ever made? I'm not even sure it's one of Hitchcock's five best.

The plot: Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is a young doctor at a mental institution whose head, Dr. Murchison (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'s Leo G. Carroll), is retiring. Arriving to replace him is one Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck). Petersen is powerfully attracted to Edwardes, which causes her no amount of conflict when she finds out that Edwardes may not be who he says he is.

Yeah, it works. Of course it does, it's Alfred Hitchcock. However, it feels at times-- especially during the first hour-- that Hitchcock hadn't quite decided whether he wanted to make his usual thriller or wanted to simply delve into romance territory. And it's not the idea that it's Hitch doing a romance that doesn't work, it's the indecision of the thing, which leads at times to the movie having all the pace of a snail on quaaludes. Once it gets going, it's as fine as any piece of Hitchcockiana, but it does take a while to get going. *** May 12, 2007

Spellbinding:

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Described by its creator as "just another manhunt story wrapped in a pseudo-psychoanalysis", "Spellbound" is spellbinding. One of the reasons I wanted to see it was, of course, the nightmare dream sequences designed by Salvador Dali but the movie offers so much more. Young and beautiful Ingrid Bergman plays the psychiatrist, Dr. Constance Petersen who fells in love with the new director of a mental institution she works for, Dr. Edwards (29 -years-old Gregory Peck in his early screen appearance was so handsome that I had difficulties following the plot twists watching him and Bergman on the screen together :)). Dr. Edwards soon turns to be an impostor, an amnesiac, and a suspect in the murder of a real Dr. Anthony Edwards. It is up to Dr. Peterson, the psychiatrist and the woman in love to discover the truth about 'J.B.', John Ballantine aka John Brown and his role in the Dr. Edwards' murder. Very dark, very moody, with Hitchcock's subtle touches of humor (provided by Michael Chekhov as Dr. Brulov), with dramatic and unsettling music score (Miklós Rózsa received Oscar for the Best Music), "Spellbound" is a classic and one of the Master's finest films.

April 5, 2007

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