Spellbound

Spellbound (1945) 

Notable cast/crew: Ingrid Bergman as Constance Peterson.  This marks the first of three movies she made with Hitchcock.  Gregory Peck as John Ballantyne.  This was his first of two films with Hitchcock.  Michael Chekhov as Dr Alexander Brulov.  Leo G Carroll as Dr Murchison.  This was the third of six films with Hitchcock.  Rhonda Fleming as Mary Carmichael.  Norman Lloyd as Mr Garmes.  Lloyd was previously in Saboteur.  Dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali.  Score by Miklós Rózsa.

Running time: 111 minutes (118 minutes with overture/exit score)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: At Green Manors, Dr Constance Peterson works as a psychiatrist.  She's treating Mary Carmichael who has violent outbursts and a schizophrenic relationship towards men.  Dr Murchison oversees the facility, but he's retiring soon with Dr Edwardes taking his place.  Dr Edwardes arrives and is introduced to everyone.

Eye put a spell on you

At dinner, Dr Peterson makes some lines on the tablecloth with a fork which unnerves Dr Edwardes.  As they spend time getting to know each other, a romance blossoms.  While embracing her, he is again unnerved by lines on her robe.  When Mr Garmes, another patient, injures himself in a violent outburst, the doctors rush to emergency surgery.  There, Dr Edwardes has some kind of breakdown, talking incoherently.  Dr Peterson tends to him, but she notices his signature from a note that morning does not match her old autographed copy of a book he wrote years before.  She realizes he is not Dr Edwardes.

"Dr Edwardes" says the real doctor is dead, and he killed him.  He claims to not know who he is, having complete amnesia, but somehow came to be posing as Dr Edwardes though he thinks he killed him.  He has a cigarette case on him with the initials "J B" which makes his head ache when he sees it.  He leaves for New York to try to find out more.  Dr Peterson tracks him down there and vows to help him remember who he is and what happened.

He seems to know quite a lot about psychiatric medicine so she believes he was a doctor.  The newspaper article on Edwardes' disappearance says Edwardes was last seen with a patient of his which is who the fake Dr Edwardes believes himself to be.  They head to Rochester to see Dr Brulov who is an old colleague of Dr Peterson.

"JB" goes into a surreal dream sequence filled with symbols as Dr Brulov psychanalyzes him.  After intensive therapy, they find he has been stricken by the memory of accidentally killing his brother as a child.  His name is John Ballantyne, and he is a doctor.  He had met Edwardes while he was recovering from trauma suffered during war.  He saw Edwardes fall off a cliff while skiing and had taken on Edwardes' identity as a kind of dissociation with seeing another death.  When the authorities find Edwardes' body, they find a bullet in his back.  Ballantyne is still missing the final piece.  He is arrested, tried, and convicted for the murder.

Dr Murchison comforts Peterson and mentions he knew Edwardes only slightly...but previously he had claimed never to have met the man.  She confronts Dr Murchison and finds he had in fact known Edwardes: he had considered Edwardes stealing his practice at Green Manors, and it was he who killed Edwardes, not Ballantyne.  Murchison pulls a gun on her, but she convinces him there is enough evidence to prove his guilt.  She reasons with him that he won't kill her because he can still use an insanity defense for Edwardes' murder, but he'll lose this defense if he kills her.  She leaves, and he kills himself instead.

MacGuffin: None

Hitchcock cameo: Walking out of the elevator at the Empire Hotel

Hitchcock themes: 

• Identity

Verdict: A great film, but it falls a little short.  The ending wraps up rather quickly and neatly, and the large focus on psychoanalysis has not held up as well over time.  However, this is a very visual movie, and the aesthetics have held up well.  The music is also top notch and really sets the mood for the mystery, suspense, and dreamlike quality to much of the movie.  The shot where the audience sees the killer's view down a gun barrel pointing at Peterson was filmed using a giant hand holding a giant gun to get the perspective correct. Although the film is in black and white, two frames where the gun shot goes off while pointed at the camera are tinted red.  This sequence even now holds up quite well.  The famous Dali sequence was originally longer but was cut down to a scant two minutes.  While it's not as strong as those involved in making the movie wanted, it still has a striking quality and the effect has clearly lasted as the imagery used is still remembered by people decades later.

Spellbound won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Michael Chekhov); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Director; Best Effects, Special Effects; and Best Picture. Ingrid Bergman received the New York Film Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress for the film in 1945.

Out of five bananas, I give it:

Next review: Notorious