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116 comments in total

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36 out of 48 people found the following comment useful :-
Wonderful mystery/romance from the master of suspense!, 1 May 2003
Author: Infofreak from Perth, Australia

While I wouldn't include 'Spellbound' in my top five favourite Alfred Hitchcock movies it's still wonderfully entertaining. Of course it had dated badly in some ways, but not enough to spoil a modern viewer's enjoyment. Psychoanalysis was still quite a cinematic novelty at the time, but this means that we have to put up with an awkward opening sequence, complete with "explanations" on the screen, and a few pretty hokey moments throughout, but hey, I can live with that, and the amateurish filmed skiing scene. These few flaws, quite a rarity for Hitchcock, are still small potatoes. The legendary Salvador Dali designed dream sequence allegedly used very little of the great surrealists outlandish ideas, but even so it's striking and memorable. I also really enjoyed the inventive score by Miklos Rozsa, which utilized the eerie sound of the theremin, later used in the science fiction classic 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', and The Beach Boys psychedelic pop masterpiece 'Good Vibrations'. Now the best thing about 'Spellbound' and what really makes it into a wonderfully entertaining mystery/romance is Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. These two Golden Age superstars are both absolutely wonderful individually, but together they are magical, and one of THE great romantic couples in movie history. 'Spellbound' may not be Hitchcock's very best work, but I still highly recommended it. I can't see how anyone could not enjoy it.

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36 out of 52 people found the following comment useful :-
Amnesia,Freud and Dali., 15 September 2001

Author: dbdumonteil

Could this one be the most underrated of all Hitchcock's American movies/What?only 7.6?And however,you've got plenty of movies for the price of one!Come on ,wake up,and give this triumph its due!

1.It's a mystery movie:Peck suffers from amnesia,he may or may not be a criminal,only snatches of memory come back and he can't put them together.Some clues appear,the "lines" vision is the most famous.

2.It's a movie full of suspense;great scenes:the letter which Bergman tries to hide,the news papers at the railway station.

3.It's a chase movie:Bergman and Peck escape from the nursing home and search a shrink's colleague help.

4.It's a dreamlike movie:not only for the Dali's -too often unfairly dismissed-dream.Actually, the whole story is wrapped in a supernatural,eerie atmosphere.

5.It's a romantic story:the scenes outside the nursing home in country landscapes are wonderfully and lovingly filmed.

6.It's a movie of redemption:Bergman falls in love with her patient,and she's got to struggle -thanks Mister Freud- to help Peck to recover his

full memory.

7.It's a technically astounding movie,as in every Hitch movie:it features the shortest color scene (it's a black and white movie)in cinema.And I won't tell you when it appears,watch out.

8.It's a movie from the Master of suspense,and I trade you "a lapse of memory","shattered" and "the third day " for "Spellbound"!It deserves to be in the top 250!

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26 out of 36 people found the following comment useful :-
A Fine, Distinctive Film Despite Its Implausible Aspects, 9 July 2001
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

"Spellbound" is one of Hitchcock's hardest films to evaluate, because its plot and credibility are so heavily dependent on theories of psychoanalysis that are usually considered to be implausible, at the very best. But if you can accept, for the sake of entertainment, the more dubious plot devices, what remains is a fine film dominated by the great director's usual creativity and technical mastery. Although it's hard to get away from the implausibilities, it's a fine movie in all other respects.

Gregory Peck stars as an amnesia case, and Ingrid Bergman as a psychoanalyst trying to unravel his mysterious - and possibly murderous - past. Most of the other characters are also psychoanalysts or patients, and the plot revolves around the ways that Bergman's character uses Freudian theories to solve the mystery. Whether you can enjoy the story depends on how willing you are to suspend disbelief concerning the wilder aspects of these theories, but if you are willing to do so, it's quite nicely done in most parts, with some fine scenes and a couple of good plot twists. It is also worth watching for the famous Salvador Dali dream sequence, which is very creatively done and fascinating to watch. Peck and Bergman also create interesting and sympathetic characters, who make the viewer want to know what will happen to them.

Overall, this is a distinctive film, and well worth seeing for any Hitchcock fan.

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23 out of 35 people found the following comment useful :-
Freudian fantasy, 7 August 1999

Author: Spleen from Canberra, Australia

A world in which Freudian psycho-analysis works as it's supposed to is rather like a world in which magic works - so call this film a fantasy. There's nothing whatever wrong with fantasy. Indeed, there's nothing better. Hitchcock announces at the very beginning that the story takes place in a Freudian world; thereafter he plays perfectly fair with us.

He even chose the right collaborators for a fantasy. The dream sequences were designed by Salvador Dali. (Anyone whose dreams really do look like Dali paintings maybe COULD do with some psycho-analysis.) They're not frightening - dream sequences rarely are - but they are at any rate more interesting than the usual dreams we might have or hear about. The music was by Miklós Rózsa, maybe the best of the composers who settled in Hollywood, certainly the most vividly overpowering. He was exactly the right choice for this film - however much Hitchcock disliked the score, or said that he did.

The story follows a confused Gregory Peck, who cannot remember key episodes of his recent (and not so recent) past, and who may, just possibly, be a dangerous criminal. Ingrid Bergman is a second-generation disciple of Freud who despite her professional caution finds herself falling in love with him. Perhaps it sounds cardboard already, but the performances invest the characters with more life than my descriptions did. Peck in particular is highly sympathetic. He comes across as not at all mad, not even mentally disturbed - just a man who can't remember one or two things and has an odd aversion to things like parallel lines. (That?s right - parallel lines.) Anyway, as I said, it's a fantasy: the forces of psychoanalysis must unravel the mystery before it's too late. (Why there's a "too late" is too complicated to go into.) The usual kind of Hitchcock suspense isn't there but the man WAS capable of moving outside his home genre now and then. Remember, his other fantasy was "The Birds".

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15 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Lushly romantic with the haunting Academy Award Miklos Rozsa score..., 6 December 2004
Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

If Hitchcock dealt with psychological themes in 'Shadow of a Doubt' and 'Suspicion', with 'Spellbound' he was facing the affairs of the mind… Most of his film took place in a mental asylum, where the Swedish star was the best-looking doctor you have ever seen… Cool, seductive, and attractive in front of Hitchcock's eyes…

When Gregory Peck arrived as the new head doctor, she fell in love with him; but soon his staring eyes, his long pauses and the heavy shadows surrounding him led her, like us, to suspect that he was not 'Dr. Anthony Edwards' at all, but was really a mental case himself who had assumed the identity of the doctor… In that case, what had happened to the real doctor?

Gregory Peck could not say, because he was suffering from amnesia and could not remember his past… While we begin to wonder, he became convinced that he was a murderer and took fight, sought by the police…

Convinced of his innocence – but needing to persuade her patient to prove it – Ingrid Bergman caught up with Peck and took him for shelter to a psychoanalyst who tried to solve the truth in his dreams…

'Spellbound' is a harmless and suspenseful piece of cinema… Hitchcock touches were splendid, and the stars shined magically… The psychiatric window-dressing was impressive, and surrealist artist Salvador Dali was hired to paint the dream sequences... This was not, incidentally, Salvador Dali's introduction to the cinema: in 1929 he had collaborated in writing 'Un Chien Andalou' with the man whose cinematic imagination has always flowered in the gardens of the unconscious mind: Luis Buñuel.

Rhonda Fleming made her film debut here, and Norman Lloyd, last seen as he fell from the Statue of Liberty in 'Saboteur', made a brief appearance as a patient…

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19 out of 29 people found the following comment useful :-
Terrific! Powerful mystery leads to romance., 24 October 2000

Author: Michael O'Keefe from Muskogee OK

Alfred Hitchcock weaves his spell binding magic into this Francis Beeding novel. In some opinions, this is Hitchcock's best project from the 40's. Powerful stars and a great story line keeps your interest until the final shot.

An amnesia patient(Gregory Peck)is believed to be a psychotic killer. Bits and pieces of his memory about a childhood accident makes him believe that he is a murderer. Ingrid Bergman plays a young psychiatrist, who helps Peck unravel his past and regain his memory and mental health. During this process, the lovely doctor tries not to fall in love with her needy patient. She takes him to her old professor(Michael Chekhov) for help. He is reluctant to get involved with solving the mystery to clear the patient's name.

Brilliant camera work and being filmed in black & white really helped the story line. There is an eye opening dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali that is down right mystic.

The strong and talented cast also includes: Regis Toomey, Leo G. Carroll and Rhonda Fleming. This film is worth the time to watch again and again.

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20 out of 31 people found the following comment useful :-
Visually stylish but hopelessly silly oddity, 2 January 2006

Author: Michael Moricz (MCMoricz@aol.com) from Astoria, NY

I recently saw this film on the large screen after having not seen it for over 10 years. My memories of it were not that fond -- I recalled it as an unusually melodramatic and not very convincing thriller enlivened by a very attractive cast.

What I had forgotten about was how almost impossibly silly all the psychoanalytical claptrap is, especially in the first couple of reels, which thereby make us feel very quickly that we're not quite in the mature, masterful grip of Hitch's usual wit and taste. Yes, I know this was made in the 40's, but the first 20 to 30 minutes of the film have more sexist moments and infantile behavior by supposed doctors than one would ever expect from either Hitch or Ben Hecht.

So who's to blame? One guess -- David O. Selznick! That being said (along with the fact that the story doesn't really add up to much of anything, since all the premises on which it's based seem so shaky, naive and downright goofy), the film has some things going for it. About midway through the picture, when Michael Chekhov appears as Dr. Brulov, the film suddenly kicks into what we might call "classic British Hitch mode," with the kind of understated wit and ensemble playing the director had been doing so well since the early 30's. It almost becomes another (and far more palatable) film at this point. The scenes with Bergman, Peck and Chekhov are the highlight of the film, and I have to admit that I'm even kind of fond of the hotel lobby scene, with the appealingly breezy Bill Goodwin (of "Burns and Allen" radio fame) as the house detective. Peck has never been more handsome, in a strangely fragile way.

Also worth a look are the brief but truly unusual Dali-designed dream sequences. There is something to be said for Miklos Rozsa's score as well: although it edges a bit far into soupy overscoring, the expressive main theme has quality, and his use of the theremin (which he also employed in his score for THE LOST WEEKEND at virtually the same time) is striking and represented "something new" in film music.

One could easily make excuses for this film based on "it was only 1945" or "what people knew about psychoanalysis was still naive", etc., but even taken in context of its time it's a pretty silly film without the kind of sustained surety of style leavened with simultaneous suspense, intelligence, taste and humor that he had already proved he could do so well from more than ten years earlier. Given a standard he had already given us with examples from THE 39 STEPS or YOUNG AND INNOCENT through THE LADY VANISHES in the UK, or FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT and SHADOW OF A DOUBT here in the US, this film seems not up to his true capacities, and like his other Selznick-produced American film, REBECCA, seems both overfussy and filled with emphases and spoonfeeding of details which Hitch himself would never have given us.

You need only compare this film with his very next one, NOTORIOUS, to be painfully aware how much better Hitchcock on his own -- using his own standards of pace, momentum and the ADULT treatment of script themes -- could be when not under the thumb of Selznick. Thank God he didn't have to work for him any more after this.

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Implausible, but great!, 25 February 2007

Author: keylight-4 from United States

This is one of my favorite movies, despite what I must reluctantly admit is a preposterous plot. But what a great cast -- Gregory Peck, the beautiful Ingrid Bergman, and various familiar character actors. Wallace Ford has an entertaining scene as an obnoxious hotel guest trying to pick up Ingrid Bergman, but who gets chased off twice by the house detective. Even though the plot elements are often unbelievable, it doesn't matter, as far as I'm concerned; the pacing is just right, the script is literate, and the dramatic tension sustains the viewer's interest to the end.

And for my money, this movie contains one of the most, if not THE most, romantic scenes ever put on film: Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman, having met only a day or two before, admit to each other that they've fallen in love. He walks slowly toward her and she lifts her face to him and closes her eyes. The scene dissolves to a series of lovely doors opening slowly down a hall, to the accompaniment of Miklos Rosza's incomparably beautiful "Spellbound Theme". Now THAT'S romantic! I highly recommend "Spellbound" to any classic movie fan.

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14 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
An Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, 14 August 1999
Author: Elizabeth (endofroad2@aol.com) from NY

"Spellbound" has become one of my favorite Hitchcock movies. I think Gregory Peck is excellent in this movie as John Ballantine, the amnesiac who receives help from Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman). But John has more problems than amnesia. He cannot stand to see dark lines on a white background. For example, a blanket, a robe, and a tablecloth. But he remembers what had happened to him thanks to Constance and her former teacher, another psychologist named Dr. Brulov.

There is also a wonderful performance by Leo G. Carroll, who plays Dr. Murchison. He has also been one of my favorite actors, and he's brilliant in this movie.

So the bottom line is, you should really see this movie, and not just for Gregory Peck's handsome face, or Ingrid Bergman's beauty. I think it's one of Hitch's best suspense movies. By the way, Gregory Peck does look very, very handsome in this movie, so for those girls out there who still think you might not want to see it, it's worth it!

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15 out of 25 people found the following comment useful :-
The ease of the analysis is hard to swallow but the tension is well maintained, 11 July 2003
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

The head of the famous Green Manors mental asylum is being replaced by a younger psychiatrist, Dr Edwards. When Edwards arrives he falls for Dr Petersen and she for him. However, after exhibiting some very strange reactions, Edwards is exposed as a fraud - an amnesiac who has deep issues and may or may not have killed the real Edwards prior to taking up his job. Blinded by her love for him, Petersen flees the police with him and protects him as she tries to uncover the truth locked deep within his mind.

As someone who watches way too many films for my own good I probably should have seen Spellbound many years ago. Making up for lost time I watched it recently unsure of even the basic plot. I was surprised by the twist (which I guess for 99% of those watching this, won't be a twist) that Edwards was not who he claimed (thought) to be. The psychoanalysis against the clock scenario was a bit too tidy, but it does work well. I'm not a big believer of this world of therapy so some of the scenes stuck in my throat but it was proof of Hitchcock's ability that he managed to make them tense.

The example that came to my mind was the film Blackjack by John Woo in which Dolph Lungren is scared of the colour white! In that movie I was almost in fits of laughter when Lungren is stopped in his tracks by the bad guys spilling lots of milk everywhere! Here there was no such reaction to Edwards' similar fear. The director really manages to bring out tension and paranoia in every scene – there was nary a moment where I wasn't involved in the film, it was hard to know whether Edwards was a killer, a nut or what! Some of the imagry is a little obvious (doors opening) but most is good and the Dali dream sequences are pretty cool.

Of course part of this is down to Peck playing just perfect. Some of his bug eyed reactions to lines etc would have been comical had he not been able to follow through, but he did. It is to his credit that I was kept guessing as to his intentions right through the film. Bergman is also good but has to carry lines such as `I believe him because I could never feel this way for a man with badness in him' (I'm paraphrasing), the romantic side of the film is harder to carry but she does it well. Support is good, but Leo G Carroll looks very young indeed and took me by surprise when I saw him!

Overall I enjoyed this film even though there was so much that could have been a mess. It is to Hitchcock's credit that he cranks the tension up well and never lets it get silly (as it could easily have been in lesser hands). Some of it is a little too easy (isn't this deep seated stuff meant to take years rather than days?) but this aside it moves swiftly along and is a very interesting way to make a thriller.

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