Zola ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ Bear Blog

“Spellbound” by Hitchcock

I recently saw the Criterion release of Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound", starring Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. As the Criterion people tell it:

Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is a psychiatrist with a firm understanding of human nature“”or so she thinks. When the mysterious Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck) becomes the new chief of staff at her institution, the bookish and detached Constance plummets into a whirlwind of tangled identities and feverish psychoanalysis, where the greatest risk is to fall in love. A transcendent love story replete with taut excitement and startling imagery, Spellbound is classic Hitchcock, featuring stunning performances, an Academy Award®-winning score by Miklos Rozsa, and a captivating dream sequence by Surrealist icon Salvador Dali.

It is a stunning film. It starts slowly, but rises and quickly builds momentum. Hitchcock's really strong moments are suspense and creating visually interesting scenes. As with most of these old films, this one also contains lots of gibberish, such as Ingrid Bergman being too intimate with one of her patients (not in the way, though, that some over-sexualised idiots reading this may think) and also another psychologist muttering gibberish about how females behave. Utter rubbish, but what can one do?

Check it out, and keep an eye out for "Rebecca" and "Notorious", two other glorious Hitchcock classics. I always recommend the DVD releases from Criterion, and even though all these three mentioned are currently out of print, they haven't been for long, so look them up and buy them home, as they're absolutely priceless.