Spellbound (1945)

This is love! Complete...reckless...violent!

When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, discovers Edwardes is actually an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and fears he may have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced his impostor is innocent of the man's murder, and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis.

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Written by: Ben Hecht, John Palmer, Hilary St George Saunders, Angus MacPhail

Music by: Miklós Rózsa

Starring: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, John Emery, Norman Lloyd, Bill Goodwin, Steven Geray, Donald Curtis

Genre: Drama, Crime, Mystery, Romance, Thriller

Released: 1945-10-31

Runtime: 111 minutes

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Spellbound (1945): trivia & fun facts

Fun facts

• Spellbound was shot in black and white, except for two frames of bright red at the conclusion, when Dr. Murchison's gun is fired into the camera.
• Although the film is based on the 1927 novel The House of Dr. Edwardes by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer, the plots are dramatically different.
• Two minutes of the dream sequence appear in the final film, but according to Ingrid Bergman, the original had been twenty minutes long.
• Selznick originally wanted Bernard Herrmann, but when Herrmann became unavailable, Rózsa was hired and eventually won the Oscar for his score.
• However, the following month, in January 1944, Hitchcock hired Angus MacPhail, with whom he had collaborated on several war-related short films, to co-author the treatment.
• Its critical consensus says: "Spellbound's exploration of the subconscious could have benefitted from more analysis, but Alfred Hitchcock's psychedelic flourishes elevate this heady thriller along with Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck's star power".

Source: Wikipedia

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