IMDb > The Cobweb (1955)

The Cobweb (1955) More at IMDbPro »

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Overview

User Rating:
6.4/10   412 votes
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Director:
Vincente Minnelli
Writers:
William Gibson (novel) (additional dialogue)
John Paxton (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for The Cobweb on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
7 June 1955 (USA) more
Genre:
Drama more
Plot:
At an exclusive psychiatric clinic, the doctors and staff are about as crazy as the patients. The clinic head... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
User Comments:
drapes and drama.... more (18 total)

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Richard Widmark ... Dr. Stewart 'Mac' McIver

Lauren Bacall ... Meg Faversen Rinehart

Charles Boyer ... Dr. Douglas N. Devanal

Gloria Grahame ... Karen McIver

Lillian Gish ... Victoria Inch
John Kerr ... Steven W. Holte
Susan Strasberg ... Sue Brett
Oscar Levant ... Mr. Capp
Tommy Rettig ... Mark McIver
Paul Stewart ... Dr. Otto Wolff
Jarma Lewis ... Lois Y. Demuth
Adele Jergens ... Miss Cobb
Edgar Stehli ... Mr. Holcomb
Sandy Descher ... Rosemary McIver
Bert Freed ... Abe Irwin
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Additional Details

Parents Guide:
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Runtime:
134 min | USA:123 min (TCM print)
Country:
USA
Language:
English
Color:
Color (Eastmancolor)
Aspect Ratio:
2.55 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
4-Track Stereo (Western Electric Sound System)
Certification:
Australia:PG | West Germany:16 (f) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15
Company:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) more

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
James Dean was originally cast to play Steven Holte. more
Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: Stewart makes warm milk for Steve by heating chilled milk direct from refrigerator on stove for less than 20 seconds in on-screen real time. more
Quotes:
[first lines]
Karen McIver: Can I give you a ride?
more
Movie Connections:
Featured in Point Blank (1967) more

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User Comments

   (Comment on this title)
drapes and drama...., 15 August 2009
8/10
Author: MarieGabrielle from United States

A rather curious film directed by Vincent Minelli, who always was a perfectionist with his sets and actors,I am confounded as to what his inference with the drapes as metaphor;at the end patient John Kerr uses them as a blanket to get a good nights sleep.

Lauren Bacall,always an interesting presence,is a young widow and psychiatrist working at an elite institution (I assume a take on the Karl Menninger Institute in Topeka Kansas).Psychotherapy was at the height of its popularity in this era, it was almost "de rigor" for creative wealthy people to enter an elite institution,even when often there was very little wrong with them,other than needing a dose of real life.

Richard Widmark as the clinic director is quite interesting, even as his marriage to Gloria Grahame is falling apart and he becomes interested in Bacall.The drapes, and who will re-design them for the library is the primary theme here, strangely.Widmark remarks to the clinic patients that they are attempting to run a cooperative society,and this is clearly difficult.However it is difficult not because of the patients,but the doctors and their drama.

Overall an interesting curiosity,I infer that Minelli was making a commentary on the overwhelming popularity of psychoanalysis in Hollywood, at the time.8/10.

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