Spellbound (1945)

A female psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Ben Hecht (screenplay), Frances Beeding (suggested by novel "The House of Dr. Edwardes"),

Stars:

Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov

Won 1 Oscar. Another 1 win & 5 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Ingrid Bergman	...	Dr. Constance Petersen
Gregory Peck	...	John Ballantyne
Michael Chekhov	...	Dr. Alexander Brulov
Leo G. Carroll	...	Dr. Murchison
Rhonda Fleming	...	Mary Carmichael
John Emery	...	Dr. Fleurot
Norman Lloyd	...	Mr. Garmes
Bill Goodwin	...	House Detective
Steven Geray	...	Dr. Graff
Donald Curtis	...	Harry
Wallace Ford	...	Stranger in Hotel Lobby
Art Baker	...	Det. Lt. Cooley
Regis Toomey	...	Det. Sgt. Gillespie
Paul Harvey	...	Dr. Hanish

Storyline

The head of the Green Manors mental asylum Dr. Murchison is retiring to be replaced by Dr. Edwardes, a famous psychiatrist. Edwardes arrives and is immediately attracted to the beautiful but cold Dr. Constance Petersen. However, it soon becomes apparent that Dr. Edwardes is in fact a paranoid amnesiac impostor. He goes on the run with Constance who tries to help his condition and solve the mystery of what happened to the real Dr. Edwardes.

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Plot Keywords:

psychiatrist | patient | female psychiatrist | impostor | amnesia | 

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Taglines:

The Maddest Love that ever possessed a woman

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Genres:

Film-Noir | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 December 1945 (USA)

Also Known As:

Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound

Filming Locations:

Alta Lodge - 10230 E. Little Cottonwood Road, Alta, Utah, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,696,377 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Selznick International Pictures, Vanguard Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

111 min 95 min (Ontario)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Color:

Color (Two frames tinted) Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

James Flavin is in studio records/casting call lists for this movie, but he did not appear or was not identifiable.

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Goofs

When Dr. Peterson enters the library at the mental hospital, The word "LIBRARY" is clearly visible on the door in large letters. When she exits, it is gone.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Nurse: [offscreen] Miss Carmichael, please. Dr. Petersen is ready for you.

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Crazy Credits

Just before the opening credits, an overture is played.

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Connections

Featured in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970)

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Soundtracks

"Spellbound Concerto"
Composed by Miklós Rózsa

User Reviews

Rather ironic that a film titled "Spellbound" doesn't keep me spellbound, isn't it?

I honestly expected to be a little spellbound by Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 mystery Spellbound given that they are some talented talents behind it. I mean this film's got stars Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, and director Alfred Hitchcock behind it. Given that I have reasonably high expectations based on their work, I wanted to get into this film for the sake of those people involved. Unfortunately, such talented people as these can't save a disappointingly dull film such as Spellbound. In the film, we follow a psychiatrist (Ingrid Bergman) at a mental hospital who is considered by her fellow doctors as one of the best. She and her fellow peers welcome the new director (Gregory Peck) of the hospital, but fairly soon, she begins to notice some peculiar aspects about him. She notices that he has a unusual fear of seeing dark parallel lines and a white background together. In addition, she eventually finds out that he isn't who he claims to be and that he has a serious case of amnesia. When she also learns that he accidentally committed a murder, she tries to cure him of his mental struggles by learning more about his past. I should mention the few aspects of this picture that I found were decent. One thing is that there are a few eye-catching shots that I thought were well executed. There's a shot in which is similar to the type of camera shots you see in today's first person shooter video games, where someone is pointing a gun at one of the main leads and we see through their point of view. I thought that shot and similar shots like that were worthy of praising. I also don't find the performances from the leads that bad and I thought they were doing whatever they could to keep the film moving. So what did I think made Spellbound as disappointing as I'm claiming it to be? Well, my problem with Spellbound can be summarized as such: it's boring beyond belief. Why do I find it boring? I thought the direction seemed to indicate that everything that was happening in the plot was not the slightest bit interesting. The screenplay by Ben Hecht didn't give its characters anything fascinating to talk about and hardly did anything to get us invested in following the plot. This film is basically trying to force us to avoid emotionally attaching to it as much as possible. What's worse is that it succeeds well at doing just that. About 10 to 20 minutes into watching this film, that's the point where I completely lost interest in following the narrative since it is told in such a lifeless manner between the boring conversations the characters have and the boring things that are being captured on film. I believe this is definitely one of Alfred Hitchcock's weakest films because of its lack of emotional involvement, because of its uninspiring direction, because of its lame script, and because of the fact that the story that was being told wasn't that good to begin with. Maybe I didn't pick up on something in the main plot, maybe I followed it just fine enough, either way I expected much more from the talents involved that what I got. Unless you're a hardcore Hitchcock fan and just want to look at it for the sake of seeing all his flicks, I'd definitely say there are much better Hitchcock films to check out.