Spellbindingly daft (Spellbound [1945] (DVD))

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	Spellbound [1945] (DVD)
Date:	21/11/00 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great fun

Disadvantages: No classic

Allegedly the first serious attempt to make a movie about psychoanalysis, this is probably doomed to be shown at psychology conferences for a laugh. The vision of dream analysis and therapy on show here is certainly not be taken seriously. Moreover, this second-rank Hitchcock movie has some of his worst artificial excesses, with Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman doing a spot of back-projected skiing (if you don't laugh, you deserve a prize).

But accept that you're not watching something as good as 'Vertigo' and 'Spellbound' is enormous fun. Peck plays a psychologist who arrives at a remote asylum to replace the retiring Leo G. Carroll, and Bergman as a gorgeous psychoanalyst immediately falls for him. But wait! He turns out to be (in a lovely phrase I found on the IMDB) a paranoid amnesiac imposter, and it all goes pear-shaped.

It's full of Hitchcockian bits of business like the point-of-view shot at the end where the villain shoots himself, and the wonderful dream sequences designed by Salvador Dali. It's all as mad as a sack of cats, but more than enough entertainment compared to most thrillers. Like 'To Catch a Thief' and 'The man who knew too much', it's trivial, but stylish and funny, and while Peck is weak, Bergman agonises with her usual class.

Summary: