Spellbound (1945)

Star Rating: 4
Length of Film: 111 minutes
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, John Emery, Steven Geray, Paul Harvey, Donald Curtis, Rhonda Fleming, Norman Lloyd, Wallace Ford, Bill Goodwin, Art Baker, Regis Toomey, & Irving Bacon  
Oscar: Miklos Rozsa (music)
Oscar Nominations: David O. Selznick ( best picture), Alfred Hitchcock (director), Michael Chekhov (actor in support role), George Barnes (photography), Jack Cosgrove (special effects)

Spellbound was a miraculously beautiful film! They had clever camera angles and hired artist Salvador Dali to paint the pictures of a surrealist dream. Miklos Rozssa was the first music director to incorporate a Theremin as a musical instrument-the hum making an eerie, suspenseful sound.  

Dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) is a psychologist who works at a mental facility where they hired a new psychologist, Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck). Constance and Anthony immediately have an attraction for one another, yet she notices that there’s something odd about him, especially when it comes to seeing parallel lines-white parallel lines. Dressed for bed, Constance gets up, puts on her robe, grabs Anthony’s book and goes up to his room to “discuss” the book. While there, she notices that Anthony’s signature didn’t look like the signature that was signed in her book. Anthony has another mental breakdown after seeing white parallel lines, and comes to the realization that he’s not Anthony Peterson. That he killed the real Dr. Peterson.

The whole movie is Constance psychoanalyzing “Anthony” and trying to help him figure out who he is and to also to prove his innocence. Constance brings “Anthony” to meet Dr. Brulov (Michael Cheklov) and both analyze his dreams (artwork by Salvador Dali) which give them clues to what really happened to him. “Anthony” figures out what his real name is, who he actually murdered, and who murdered the real Dr. Anthony Edwardes.

My favorite 2 parts was the camera angle of “Anthony” drinking milk out of a cup and the real murderer of Dr. Anthony Edwardes, holding a gun, pointing it at Dr. Peterson, after she leaves, he slowly points the gun to himself, so the audience is staring down the barrel of the gun.