User reviews

"Spellbound" is a psychological thriller that tells the story of the new head of a mental asylum (Peck) who turns out to be an imposter. It's love at first sight for Constance (Bergman), a psychiatrist at the asylum, who falls for Anthony (Peck). However, his amnesia and dizzy spells reveal that he isn't the man he says he is, and he may have actually killed the man he's pretending to be.

As things begin to unravel and the situation becomes public knowledge, Anthony does a runner and Constance leaves the asylum to track him down. The pair reunites and Constance quests to prove the innocence of her new lover.

This movie has suspense written all over it. I'm a big fan of Hitchcock movies, especially the cinematography. I love it when the shot cuts to a new location or landscape - almost in complete silence. It gives a certain eerie 'what's going to happen here?' feel to it. Even in the opening titles with the bare tree branches rattling in the wind - you know you're in for a real treat with that spooky music.

At times Peck's character does come across a bit of wimp during his funny 'spells' where he flashes back to a time when he THINKS he may have committed a crime. You want him to pull himself together and snap out of it, yet it's part of the plot so all is forgiven.

When all the signs point to guilt Constance, in what we can only assume is her own delusion and blindness, refuses to believe that Anthony could ever do something so heinous. Her scepticism rings true towards the end when her psychiatric training comes in handy and we discover what really happened. She calls on the expertise of her former mentor, played by Michael Chekhov, who plays the part of the probing, and rather peculiar, psychoanalyst well.

Bergman and Peck make a terrific pairing. The love their characters have for each other is so convincing, you pray (and hope) that Anthony is innocent and it's all a misunderstanding. Bergman portrays Constance's desperation so well - she is desperate to prove Anthony is a good man despite his multiple admissions of guilt.

Good Alfred Hitchcock film in which Ingrid Bergman plays a psychiatrist from a mental hospital with various patients (Norman Lloyd, Rhonda Fleming), along with Leo G. Carroll and other doctors heal them . There comes Gregory Peck replacing former director . But Peck has amnesia and having panic to white color and the lines , then Ingrid falls in love with him , as she uncovers his previous life through Freudian analysis . The picture is based on novel ¨House of Edwards¨ by Bleeding and concerning the psychoanalysis , an usual theme in post-WWII time.

The movie contains thriller , tension , suspense , romance , intrigue , unlimited excitement and plenty of plot twists , as usual in Hitchcock films . Besides , it has a literately witty dialog with distinctive Hitch's touches and writing credits by Ben Hetch (Billy Wilder's habitual writer). There's also an exciting and famous dream sequence by Salvador Dali . Hitch didn't want the ordinary dream images with fog and cloud but he asked David O'Selznick (the famed Hollywood producer) for hire to prestigious surrealist painter Salvador Dali from Spain . Superb performances from main characters , a gorgeous blonde (Hitch later used Grace Kelly , Kim Novak) Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982) who would work with Hitchcock in various films (Notorious , Under Capricorn) and the elegant and brilliant Gregory Peck (Paradine trial) as the confuse amnesic , both of whom are frankly well . They are well accompanied by a good support cast , such as : Leo G Carroll, Rhonda Fleming and Norman Lloyd , Hitch' s regular. Sensational black and white cinematography by George Barnes . Dramatic, atmospheric and thrilling musical score by Miklos Rozsa , he won an Academy Award for the excellent score . The flick will appeal to Hitchcock enthusiasts as well as Ingrid Bergman/Gregory Peck fans . Rating : Above average , well worth watching.

You've fallen for a man who's an impostor, although his memories of before he cannot foster, a psychologist by trade, you're intent to move the shade, and prevent John Ballantyne from getting loster. He disappears, you track him down and run away, to your mentor's house you find a place to stay, as together you decrypt, in abstract dreams you find transcript, then make your way to mountains where folk ski and sleigh. It soon transpires that there's skulduggery at work, you're new loves actions, can't possibly be shirked, a slippery slope is more inclined, riven with twisting, turning lines, a casual comment fills with light, removes the dark.

Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck enchant throughout.

While I wouldn't include 'Spellbound' in my top five favourite Alfred Hitchcock movies it's still wonderfully entertaining. Of course it had dated badly in some ways, but not enough to spoil a modern viewer's enjoyment. Psychoanalysis was still quite a cinematic novelty at the time, but this means that we have to put up with an awkward opening sequence, complete with "explanations" on the screen, and a few pretty hokey moments throughout, but hey, I can live with that, and the amateurish filmed skiing scene. These few flaws, quite a rarity for Hitchcock, are still small potatoes. The legendary Salvador Dali designed dream sequence allegedly used very little of the great surrealists outlandish ideas, but even so it's striking and memorable. I also really enjoyed the inventive score by Miklos Rozsa, which utilized the eerie sound of the theremin, later used in the science fiction classic 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', and The Beach Boys psychedelic pop masterpiece 'Good Vibrations'. Now the best thing about 'Spellbound' and what really makes it into a wonderfully entertaining mystery/romance is Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. These two Golden Age superstars are both absolutely wonderful individually, but together they are magical, and one of THE great romantic couples in movie history. 'Spellbound' may not be Hitchcock's very best work, but I still highly recommended it. I can't see how anyone could not enjoy it.

Could this one be the most underrated of all Hitchcock's American movies/What?only 7.6?And however,you've got plenty of movies for the price of one!Come on ,wake up,and give this triumph its due!

1.It's a mystery movie:Peck suffers from amnesia,he may or may not be a criminal,only snatches of memory come back and he can't put them together.Some clues appear,the "lines" vision is the most famous.

2.It's a movie full of suspense;great scenes:the letter which Bergman tries to hide,the news papers at the railway station.

3.It's a chase movie:Bergman and Peck escape from the nursing home and search a shrink's colleague help.

4.It's a dreamlike movie:not only for the Dali's -too often unfairly dismissed-dream.Actually, the whole story is wrapped in a supernatural,eerie atmosphere.

5.It's a romantic story:the scenes outside the nursing home in country landscapes are wonderfully and lovingly filmed.

6.It's a movie of redemption:Bergman falls in love with her patient,and she's got to struggle -thanks Mister Freud- to help Peck to recover his

full memory.

7.It's a technically astounding movie,as in every Hitch movie:it features the shortest color scene (it's a black and white movie)in cinema.And I won't tell you when it appears,watch out.

8.It's a movie from the Master of suspense,and I trade you "a lapse of memory","shattered" and "the third day " for "Spellbound"!It deserves to be in the top 250!

Alfred Hitchcock weaves his spell binding magic into this Francis Beeding novel. In some opinions, this is Hitchcock's best project from the 40's. Powerful stars and a great story line keeps your interest until the final shot.

An amnesia patient(Gregory Peck)is believed to be a psychotic killer. Bits and pieces of his memory about a childhood accident makes him believe that he is a murderer. Ingrid Bergman plays a young psychiatrist, who helps Peck unravel his past and regain his memory and mental health. During this process, the lovely doctor tries not to fall in love with her needy patient. She takes him to her old professor(Michael Chekhov) for help. He is reluctant to get involved with solving the mystery to clear the patient's name.

Brilliant camera work and being filmed in black & white really helped the story line. There is an eye opening dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali that is down right mystic.

The strong and talented cast also includes: Regis Toomey, Leo G. Carroll and Rhonda Fleming. This film is worth the time to watch again and again.

Alfred Hitchcock makes his customary quick cameo at 38:52-38:55 at the Empire Hotel lobby in New York City. He's exiting an elevator, smoking a cigarette.

I recently saw this film on the large screen after having not seen it for over 10 years. My memories of it were not that fond -- I recalled it as an unusually melodramatic and not very convincing thriller enlivened by a very attractive cast.

What I had forgotten about was how almost impossibly silly all the psychoanalytical claptrap is, especially in the first couple of reels, which thereby make us feel very quickly that we're not quite in the mature, masterful grip of Hitch's usual wit and taste. Yes, I know this was made in the 40's, but the first 20 to 30 minutes of the film have more sexist moments and infantile behavior by supposed doctors than one would ever expect from either Hitch or Ben Hecht.

So who's to blame? One guess -- David O. Selznick! That being said (along with the fact that the story doesn't really add up to much of anything, since all the premises on which it's based seem so shaky, naive and downright goofy), the film has some things going for it. About midway through the picture, when Michael Chekhov appears as Dr. Brulov, the film suddenly kicks into what we might call "classic British Hitch mode," with the kind of understated wit and ensemble playing the director had been doing so well since the early 30's. It almost becomes another (and far more palatable) film at this point. The scenes with Bergman, Peck and Chekhov are the highlight of the film, and I have to admit that I'm even kind of fond of the hotel lobby scene, with the appealingly breezy Bill Goodwin (of "Burns and Allen" radio fame) as the house detective. Peck has never been more handsome, in a strangely fragile way.

Also worth a look are the brief but truly unusual Dali-designed dream sequences. There is something to be said for Miklos Rozsa's score as well: although it edges a bit far into soupy overscoring, the expressive main theme has quality, and his use of the theremin (which he also employed in his score for THE LOST WEEKEND at virtually the same time) is striking and represented "something new" in film music.

One could easily make excuses for this film based on "it was only 1945" or "what people knew about psychoanalysis was still naive", etc., but even taken in context of its time it's a pretty silly film without the kind of sustained surety of style leavened with simultaneous suspense, intelligence, taste and humor that he had already proved he could do so well from more than ten years earlier. Given a standard he had already given us with examples from THE 39 STEPS or YOUNG AND INNOCENT through THE LADY VANISHES in the UK, or FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT and SHADOW OF A DOUBT here in the US, this film seems not up to his true capacities, and like his other Selznick-produced American film, REBECCA, seems both overfussy and filled with emphases and spoonfeeding of details which Hitch himself would never have given us.

You need only compare this film with his very next one, NOTORIOUS, to be painfully aware how much better Hitchcock on his own -- using his own standards of pace, momentum and the ADULT treatment of script themes -- could be when not under the thumb of Selznick. Thank God he didn't have to work for him any more after this.

I watched Spellbound for the first time this morning, and overall I was very impressed. While Spellbound is far from his best film, it is in general very well done, and I would definitely watch it again for a number of reasons. Hitchcock's direction is noteworthy, maybe not as tight as it usually is, but still noteworthy. The film is shot with breathtaking black and white cinematography, particularly the scene in the countryside, in fact the only scene where it didn't quite work was in the skiing scene, it looked rushed and a tad too amateurish. On a more positive note, the music score by Miklos Rosza was absolutely outstanding; it is without a doubt one of the best film scores I have ever heard, and in my opinion one of the more memorable scores in any Hitchcock film. From the beautiful sweeping title theme, to some truly haunting parts in especially the scene with the sleepwalking. The final solution is exceedingly clever and unpredictable, and the dream sequence by Salvador Dali while short was essential to the plot and very effective. Speaking of the plot, mixed with psychological nuances and a young doctor's struggles to help her patient/ lover and prove his innocence, has its usual twists and turns and is pretty suspenseful. I will admit some of it is implausible, and the script may just lack the sophistication of the scripts of Hitchcocks like Vertigo or Rebecca, but on the whole it was cleverly crafted. The performances are in general very good; Gregory Peck is disappointingly one-note, but as the beautiful but cold Constance Peterson Sweedish beauty Ingrid Bergman is a revelation. The standout supporting turns come from Michael Chekov as Alex and Leo G. Carroll as Murchison, both add a lot to the film and do very well, and Hitchcock himself makes a cameo. All in all, has its flaws, and is definitely not Hitchcock's best, but I do recommend it. And I do think that along with StageFright it is one of the more undervalued Hitchcock movies. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Awesome masterpiece created by Hitchcock .His direction is so impeccable that you can see perfect artistry in every scene of movie ,thrill suspense keep sticking audience on edge of seat . Excellent cinematography ,music , script , performances, special effects . Stellar performances by Ingrid Bergman , Gregory peck , Micheal Chekhov ...A must watch thriller ...

"Spellbound" is probably one of Hitchcock's most uneven films. It has some brilliant scenes (like the point-of-view shot near the end) that showcase Hitchcock's mastery and imagination, but it also has too many talky sequences and it takes too much time to reach its less-than-satisfying conclusion. Hitchcock relies heavily on psychological theories for his explanations, but I think that those explanations are far too simplistic. The "decoding" of the weird dream sequences is also too literal: every image has a definite and obvious meaning - does that ever happen in YOUR dreams? The low point is, for me, the explanation that the movie provides for the wheel's presence in the dream.

Spellbound (1945) directed by Alfred Hitchcock is a genius film on psychoanalysis.

It revolves around the head of the Green Manors mental asylum Dr. Murchison, who is retiring to be replaced by Dr. Edwardes, a famous psychiatrist. Edwardes arrives and is immediately attracted to the beautiful but cold Dr. Constance Petersen. However, it soon becomes apparent that Dr. Edwardes is in fact a paranoid amnesiac impostor. He goes on the run with Constance who tries to help his condition and solve the mystery of what happened to the real Dr. Edwardes.

I highly recommended watching it for its timeless plot and brilliant storytelling, especially by Hitchcock but also told through the great performances by Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. Particularly the dream sequence is pure masterclass Hitchcock. Brilliant director's take on psychological inquiry.

A world in which Freudian psycho-analysis works as it's supposed to is rather like a world in which magic works - so call this film a fantasy. There's nothing whatever wrong with fantasy. Indeed, there's nothing better. Hitchcock announces at the very beginning that the story takes place in a Freudian world; thereafter he plays perfectly fair with us.

He even chose the right collaborators for a fantasy. The dream sequences were designed by Salvador Dali. (Anyone whose dreams really do look like Dali paintings maybe COULD do with some psycho-analysis.) They're not frightening - dream sequences rarely are - but they are at any rate more interesting than the usual dreams we might have or hear about. The music was by Miklós Rózsa, maybe the best of the composers who settled in Hollywood, certainly the most vividly overpowering. He was exactly the right choice for this film - however much Hitchcock disliked the score, or said that he did.

The story follows a confused Gregory Peck, who cannot remember key episodes of his recent (and not so recent) past, and who may, just possibly, be a dangerous criminal. Ingrid Bergman is a second-generation disciple of Freud who despite her professional caution finds herself falling in love with him. Perhaps it sounds cardboard already, but the performances invest the characters with more life than my descriptions did. Peck in particular is highly sympathetic. He comes across as not at all mad, not even mentally disturbed - just a man who can't remember one or two things and has an odd aversion to things like parallel lines. (That?s right - parallel lines.) Anyway, as I said, it's a fantasy: the forces of psychoanalysis must unravel the mystery before it's too late. (Why there's a "too late" is too complicated to go into.) The usual kind of Hitchcock suspense isn't there but the man WAS capable of moving outside his home genre now and then. Remember, his other fantasy was "The Birds".

In Green Manors mental institution, Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is initiating her career of psychoanalyst and is considered a cold woman that has no time for love by her colleagues. When the head of the hospital, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll), is forced to retire by the board after a breakdown, his replacement is the successful Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck) that is so young that surprises the other doctors in his arrival. Constance and Edwardes immediately fall in love for each other, but in a couple of days later it is disclosed that the man that supposes to be Dr. Edwardes in indeed an impostor that seems to be a paranoid amnesiac with guilty complex that might have killed the famous psychoanalyst. He goes away from Green Manors to the Empire State Hotel in New York and leaves a message to Dr. Constance that decides to find him. She sneaks and travels to New York, where she meets him lodged with the identity of John Brown. Dr. Constance decides to heal him recovering his memory and discover the fate of the true Dr. Anthony Edwardes.

"Spellbound" is far from being among my favorite Hitchcock's movies, but there is at least one unforgettable moment in this suspenseful but dull romance: the sequence of John Ballantine's dream based on designs of Salvador Dali. Ingrid Bergman performs a psychoanalyst vulnerable in many moments and with unacceptable attitudes, like for example, prioritizing to open her correspondence that giving attention to her mentally ill patient Mr. Garmes or her juvenile rapture with Gregory Peck's character. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Spellbound - Quando Fala o Coração" ("Spellbound - When the Heart Speaks")

Note: On 23 October 2024, I saw this film again.

Two of the best looking and most talented performers together: Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman. The Salvador Dali dream sequence is startling. Some humorous lines "Women make the best doctors until they fall in love. Then they make the best patients." Great film.

The psychiatric Hospital "Green Manors" gets a new director (played by Gregory Peck). It doesn't take long before one psychiatrist (Ingrid Bergman) finds out that the Gregory Peck character is not the person he is pretending to be. Because she is also madly in love with him she tries to cure him. Then the story really begins.

"Spelbound" is permeated by Freudian ideas and in this respect feels a bit old fashioned. This was less the idea of Alfred Hitchcock himself as well from producer David O. Selznick. Selznick was the man who brought Hitchcock to America so Hitchcock felt he owed him something.

Freud attached great importance to the analysis of dreams, so "Spellbound" has some important dream sequences. These dream sequences were designed by the famous artist Salvador Dali and are today the main reason the film is still well known. For me they are on par with the dream sequences from "Wild strawberries" (1957, Ingmar Bergman).

Of Hitchcocks own making are the special effects in the scene where the Gregory Peck character is drinking milk. This scene is partly filmed through the bottom of the milk-glass. Hitchcock had a soft spot for special effects using a glass of milk. In "Suspicion" (1941) he used a tiny lamb in a glass of milk, giving it a mysterious "shining".

I wonder if today the psychological condition of the Gregory Peck character would still be the point of focus of the movie. Maybe today the focus would be more on the workaholism and the autism (the psychological buzzword of today) of the Ingrid Bergman character. Every period has its own psychological fashions!