There's much that's wrong with "Spellbound," but it has a way of keeping you watching.
Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is a resident analyst at Green Manors, a psychiatric institution in Vermont. She's a thorough professional, though seen as too cool by patients and peers alike. Her poise is shattered when she meets her new boss (Gregory Peck), who goes by the name of Dr. Edwardes. At once both suspicious and swept off her feet by this handsome stranger, Constance soon finds herself deep in a mystery that puts both her life and sanity at risk.
Bergman's performance is easily the best thing in the film. She's at the peak of her acclaimed radiance yet quite human, too, alternately projecting aloofness, compassion, and sheer terror. This is one of Hitch's "women's pictures," and one of his better ones, presenting us with a main character both strikingly independent and far from being in charge of her situation.
Hitch and scripter Ben Hecht have some perverse fun with the romance between Constance and Edwardes, and Bergman is terrific playing along. Her big romantic scene with Peck ends with her saying but a single word, and what a word: "Liverwurst." Bergman almost glows as she sighs the line, which is what sells it as both comic and endearing. Here and throughout the film, Bergman is just so much fun to watch.
A big problem for me is that she shares too many great moments with Gregory Peck, here at his most stiff and insufferable. Much of this is the product of a flawed script that requires him to drift off into a trance-like state any time there's a flash of white on-screen. Still, Peck's struggle to sell this makes for hard viewing. If you want an actor playing a shrink to render believable a line like: "We'll look at some sane trees, normal grass, and clouds without complexes," you need someone who had less starch in his collar than Peck had.
Much of "Spellbound" feels a bit too on the nose as the story develops. The famous dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí is interesting but entirely too literal in communicating plot points. The patients at Green Manors we briefly meet all speak out their phobias for instant analysis. ("I hate men. I loathe them.") There are drawn-out exposition scenes; a rather superfluous voice-over bit that almost spoils an otherwise fantastic ending; and more of an obvious focus on symbolism from Hitch even without Dalí, such as a couple's first kiss being accompanied with an over-the-top image of multiple doors flying open.
Constance's diagnosis of "Edwardes" problem feels pat even by doctrinaire Freudian terms, and the final cure, when it comes, is laughably simplistic. Did anyone really ever think amnesia was merely "a trick of the mind for staying sane"?
At some level, though, you can't attack "Spellbound" for being dime- store Freud because the hooey sort of works in the context of the movie. Even if you agree with Rhonda Fleming's Mary character that "this whole thing is ridiculous," you have to allow for psychiatry's magic efficacy in this film the same way you allow for Jedi mind tricks in "Star Wars." Doing so has its payoff at the end, when another overly literal dream analysis session turns into a killer's standoff, precisely because of that silly Freud stuff.
Hitchcock is masterful in his compositions here, and delivers a wonderful series of set-pieces. Bergman's great performance is wonderfully supported by Leo G. Carroll, Michael Chekhov, and John Emery as my favorite character in the movie, Constance's dogged but unsuccessful suitor Dr. Fleurot, who memorably dubs her "Miss Frozen Puss." Humor and suspense are kept in fresh supply, which helps a bit in swallowing the various, badly delivered Peck lines ("Will you love me just as much when I'm normal?" "If there's anything I hate, it's a smug woman!")
Most of all, it gives us a memorable central performance from Bergman, who makes us believe in what she's doing by the power of her character's dangerous commitment. "I couldn't feel this way toward a man who is bad." Ultimately, you may disagree with Constance, but as played by Bergman you care enough about her to stick around to the end.
Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is a resident analyst at Green Manors, a psychiatric institution in Vermont. She's a thorough professional, though seen as too cool by patients and peers alike. Her poise is shattered when she meets her new boss (Gregory Peck), who goes by the name of Dr. Edwardes. At once both suspicious and swept off her feet by this handsome stranger, Constance soon finds herself deep in a mystery that puts both her life and sanity at risk.
Bergman's performance is easily the best thing in the film. She's at the peak of her acclaimed radiance yet quite human, too, alternately projecting aloofness, compassion, and sheer terror. This is one of Hitch's "women's pictures," and one of his better ones, presenting us with a main character both strikingly independent and far from being in charge of her situation.
Hitch and scripter Ben Hecht have some perverse fun with the romance between Constance and Edwardes, and Bergman is terrific playing along. Her big romantic scene with Peck ends with her saying but a single word, and what a word: "Liverwurst." Bergman almost glows as she sighs the line, which is what sells it as both comic and endearing. Here and throughout the film, Bergman is just so much fun to watch.
A big problem for me is that she shares too many great moments with Gregory Peck, here at his most stiff and insufferable. Much of this is the product of a flawed script that requires him to drift off into a trance-like state any time there's a flash of white on-screen. Still, Peck's struggle to sell this makes for hard viewing. If you want an actor playing a shrink to render believable a line like: "We'll look at some sane trees, normal grass, and clouds without complexes," you need someone who had less starch in his collar than Peck had.
Much of "Spellbound" feels a bit too on the nose as the story develops. The famous dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí is interesting but entirely too literal in communicating plot points. The patients at Green Manors we briefly meet all speak out their phobias for instant analysis. ("I hate men. I loathe them.") There are drawn-out exposition scenes; a rather superfluous voice-over bit that almost spoils an otherwise fantastic ending; and more of an obvious focus on symbolism from Hitch even without Dalí, such as a couple's first kiss being accompanied with an over-the-top image of multiple doors flying open.
Constance's diagnosis of "Edwardes" problem feels pat even by doctrinaire Freudian terms, and the final cure, when it comes, is laughably simplistic. Did anyone really ever think amnesia was merely "a trick of the mind for staying sane"?
At some level, though, you can't attack "Spellbound" for being dime- store Freud because the hooey sort of works in the context of the movie. Even if you agree with Rhonda Fleming's Mary character that "this whole thing is ridiculous," you have to allow for psychiatry's magic efficacy in this film the same way you allow for Jedi mind tricks in "Star Wars." Doing so has its payoff at the end, when another overly literal dream analysis session turns into a killer's standoff, precisely because of that silly Freud stuff.
Hitchcock is masterful in his compositions here, and delivers a wonderful series of set-pieces. Bergman's great performance is wonderfully supported by Leo G. Carroll, Michael Chekhov, and John Emery as my favorite character in the movie, Constance's dogged but unsuccessful suitor Dr. Fleurot, who memorably dubs her "Miss Frozen Puss." Humor and suspense are kept in fresh supply, which helps a bit in swallowing the various, badly delivered Peck lines ("Will you love me just as much when I'm normal?" "If there's anything I hate, it's a smug woman!")
Most of all, it gives us a memorable central performance from Bergman, who makes us believe in what she's doing by the power of her character's dangerous commitment. "I couldn't feel this way toward a man who is bad." Ultimately, you may disagree with Constance, but as played by Bergman you care enough about her to stick around to the end.