Spellbound (1945)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Story: Hilary Saint George Saunders, Francis Beeding 
Cast: Gregory Peck, Ingrid Bergman 
Music: Miklós Rózsa
Time: 111 minutes
Bottom-line: Good film, but not spellbinding  

  This is probably one of Hitchcock’s unrecognized, but good, films. Unlike his other famous ones, Spellbound doesn’t provide the pure straightforward thrills that we expect, but provides psychological thrills, literally. Yes, in this film, Hitchcock uses psychoanalysis as the underlying theme. So if you believe in psychoanalysis, you will enjoy the movie. If you consider Freudian techniques as mumbo-jumbo, you will hate the film. Hitchcock, knowing this, shows the audience some paragraphs highlighting the advantages of psychoanalysis.

Peck as Dr. Edwardes

Dr. Constance Petersen (Bergman) is a psychoanalyst at a mental hospital. The director of the hospital, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll) is being forced into retirement. His replacement is a young man, Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Peck). The new doctor is a weird chap: he has a phobia of black lines against a white background, which becomes clear after he expresses fear when Petersen makes lines on a tissue paper with a fork. Moreover, he suffers from massive amnesia. As the story goes on, Petersen discovers that Dr. Edwardes is not whom he claims to be, and that he has a dark past. She believes that he is innocent. Does Dr. Petersen use psychoanalysis to dig deep into the history of Dr. Edwardes and free him from fear? Or do the powers of psychoanalysis fail in this case? Watch this Hitchcock thriller to find out!

Bergman as Dr. Petersen 

Personally, I believe in psychoanalysis only to some extent, so the story in this film didn’t impress me so much. It starts out well,, with Edwardes’ phobia of black lines and the problem with his identity. The film proceeds well for the first 50 minutes or so, until Petersen and Edwardes meet Dr. Brulov (Michael Checkov). After that, it is mainly how Peterson and Burlov dig into the memory of Edwardes and find out who he really is and why he fears black lines against a white background. However, I found this film extremely boring for the first 30 minutes or so, and only after Petersen starts investigating Edwardes’ identity the film gets somewhat interesting.

A scene from the dream sequence

Now most other Hitchcock films have some notable scenes: the shower scene, the crop duster scene etc. In Spellbound, the most interesting sequence is the dream of Edwardes. This was designed by Salvador Dali, and contains many psychoanalytical symbols: cards, eyes, wings and loads of other stuff. This dream is what drives the film for the last 30 minutes, and it is this dream that Petersen and Burlov analyze to find out about Edwardes. But the scene I loved comes towards the end. (The remaining paragraph may contain spoilers) Petersen confronts the villain with the truth, and the villain calmly points a revolver at her, threatening to kill her. Petersen calmly uses psychology to convince the villain that killing her would surely lead to the electric chair. The villain follows Petersen with the gun till she leaves, and finally commits suicide. I liked the way the gun is shown: the camera is kept behind the gun, and it also follows Petersen. When the gunshot goes off, the screen is tinted red (in some versions of the film; not all). This is somewhat like the girl in the red dress, in Schindler’s List. So, in a way, this is Hitchcock’s first film to use colour, before Rope in 1948.

A quote shown in the beginning of the film.

The score is brilliant, though Rózsa supposedly hated working with David O. Selznick, the producer. Rózsa won the Oscar for his score, the only win out of six nominations. The music is suspenseful and chilling whenever the scene is about Edwardes’ fear, and the score becomes romantic when Edwardes and Petersen are together. Peck was new to cinema during this film, and he has acted quite well; I like the way he displays fear and horror at seeing the black lines against white backgrounds. Bergman has also acted superbly, and plays a convincing psychoanalyst. I did not find anything great about Checkov’s acting, and I don’t think he deserved the nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

One passage about psychoanalysis shown at the
beginning of the film.

To sum up, Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound can be enjoyed if you believe in Freudian methods. If you don’t, then there is almost nothing else to enjoy. The acting is good, the score is splendid, and of course, those two memorable scenes I mentioned are brilliant to watch. Yet, the overall story is far-fetched, in my opinion, mainly because I don’t believe much in psychoanalysis. There are not many signature Hitchcockian elements either: no chases, no thrills, no suspense… the thrills are only given by the psychological interpretation of the dreams, and this is not what I expected from a Hitchcock film. But, if you can enjoy Inception, which is also predominantly about dreams, then the basic story of Spellbound should be fairly enjoyable, though not as much as Inception.

My Rating: 3/5
Rotten Tomatoes rating: 85%