Spellbound
Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Fullscreen Black and white 1945
MGM 2012 118 minutes
A thriller set in an asylum starring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman and directed by Alfred Hitchcock with sets and scenes by Salvador Dali: You would be hard pressed to find a more intriguing combination. Now available on Blu-ray, Spellbound is one of the lesser known Hitchcock thrillers because it is a little too heavy-handed and melodramatic for an audience sixty years removed.
Spellbound is sure to interest mystery and thriller fans. Gregory Peck plays Dr. Edwardes, the new head of Green Manors Asylum. Its recently former head, Dr. Brulov is mentor to the rather glacial Dr. Petersen (Bergman). Dr. Edwardes specializes in guilt created memories.
By the time Petersen falls in love with him it turns out Dr. Edwardes is not quite the man he seems to be. Both go on the lam to find out who Edwardes really is and if he is indeed a killer.
Bergman’s performance in Spellbound is rather ordinary but Peck is his usual cool self. Bergman also appears with Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s Notorious which was released on Blu-ray at the same time as this and Rebecca (Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine)
This Hitchcock mystery deserves to be rediscovered. Special features for Spellbound Blu-ray are a better than average and informative track with Tom Schatz and Charles Ramirez berg; Dreaming With Scissors: Hitchcock, Surrealism, and Salvador Dali; Guilt by Association: Psychoanalyzing Spellbound; A Cinderella Story: Rhonda Fleming; 1948 radio play; Hitchcock 1948 interview, and trailer
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