Saturday, September 26, 2015

Spellbound

Spellbound is a 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film starring Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming. A theremin is used in the score, and there's a dream sequence designed by Salvadore Dali. Honestly, this film doesn't seem to get the love it's due, considering what it has going for it. Yes, the psychology is dated, but that doesn't affect my enjoyment of the movie.

It opens with this writing on the screen:
The fault is not in our stars... but in ourselves. -Shakespeare

Our story deals with psychoanalysis, the method by which modern science treats the emotional problems of the sane. The analyst seeks only to induce the patient to talk about his hidden problems, to open the locked doors of his mind. Once the complexes that have been disturbing the patient are uncovered and interpreted, the illness and confusion disappear … and the evils of unreason are driven from the human soul.
You can watch it in small sections via Youtube. The first section is here:


DVD Talk says,
Less a pure Hitchcockian thriller than the intriguing and satisfying foray of Hitch's own subconscious-penetrating preoccupations and sensibilities into the dreamlands of surrealism and Hollywood, Spellbound isn't the master's greatest film, but there are very few pictures quite like it, either in his filmography or anywhere else.

Images Journal says, "the movie still has considerable power and its hypnotic atmosphere is still compelling." It's listed in the book 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. TCM has some information. Rotten Tomatoes has a critics score of 85%.

2 comments:

  1. We saw this not too long ago. With Peck and Bergman, how can one go wrong!

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    Replies
    1. I know! I was surprised the RT critics score wasn't higher.

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