Spellbound (1945)

Studio: MGM
Theatrical Release: Dec. 28th, 1945
Blu-Ray Release: Jan. 24th, 2012
Rating: Unrated!
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Review by Craig Sorensen

Well, it’s time for the director of the Green Manors psychiatric hospital to step down.  Evidently the good Doctor Murchison (Leo G. Carroll of Tarantula) has had a nervous breakdown.  The staff is pretty broken up about it, especially Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman of Notorious).  Her fears are relieved when she meets Murchison’s replacement, the handsome Dr. Edwards (Gregory Peck of The Omen).  The two of them quickly fall in love.  Unfortunately for Dr. Petersen, Dr. Edwards is actually a paranoid amnesiac who may have killed the real Dr. Edwards and taken his identity.

Spellbound is almost pure camp comedy.  Intentionally so.  The dialog and performances are so ridiculously melodramatic that if Hitchcock didn’t embrace the inherent silliness in the piece it would have ended up unintentionally funny.  Which I would still enjoy I guess but it would be a little disappointing coming from Hitchcock.  As it stands though, watching Spellbound feels like being let in on a joke that no one else seems to get.  Not that I think I’m being particularly clever (which, of course, I am) but it seems like people seem to revere the director so much that they forget his silly side.  That side is in full effect here.  The film opens with Bergman’s character Dr. Constance Petersen interviewing ‘nymphomaniac’ Rhonda Fleming.  Fleming tells a story about meeting a man at a dance and biting his mustache off.  She then screams at Bergman for her “drooling science” and gets carted off.  There is a great scene in the lobby of the hotel where Peck runs off to involving a lecherous drunk trying to put the moves on Bergman.  Michael Chekhov is almost doing a bad vaudeville impression of a german psychologist and he get’s some great one liners (Good night and sweet dreams, which we’ll analyze at breakfast).  When Peck sees vertical lines he has some hilarious freak-out scenes where he gets to yell insults at Bergman.  There’s a lot of funny stuff.  It kind of reminds me of Shock Corridor in the way it just goes for broke with the melodrama and accepting the ridiculousness of it all and saying ‘fuck it, I’m doing it anyway’.

Of course, there are a few scenes that really stand out from the rest of the silliness, the major one being the dream sequence.  Designed by Salvador Dali, this scene is the centerpiece of the film.  When people usually talk about something being ‘surreal’ they usually don’t realise how Freudian the movement was.  Watching the sequence is like viewing one of Dali’s painting, or like the act of psychoanalysis.  It’s a mystery.  It gives you all the clues and it’s up to you to piece them together.  The sequence does give you all the clues that you need to solve the mystery at the center of the film (come to think of it, psychoanalysis is a great plot devise for a mystery).  It’s also a beautifully filmed sequence.

Of course, acting across the board is great.  Bergman is great once again as the sex deprived doctor.  She gets to deliver my favorite line from the film, which is simply ‘liverwurst’ (which I’m assuming is some veiled dick joke).  Peck is, at various times in the film, vulnerable and creepy.  There is a scene in the middle of the film involving a strait razor that’s pretty harrowing and Peck sells his psychopathic break perfectly.  You also get a pre-acromegalia Leo G. Carroll and Michael Chekhov hamming it up.

MGM’s new Blu-Ray looks fantastic.  The film is presented in it’s original 1.33:1 aspect ratio in a great looking AVC encoded, 1080p high definition transfer.  There is improved detail over every other video presentation that I’ve ever seen.  The black & white image has good contrast and doesn’t seem overly bright.  I didn’t notice any issues with compression or noise reduction at all.  MGM have done a great job with this transfer and I’d imagine that this is as good as it’s going to get (until the next format I guess).

The disc, like the other two Hitchcock discs from MGM, comes loaded with extras.  First off, we get a commentary from author Charles Ramirez Berg.  Then you get three featurettes, the first of which is “Dreaming With Scissors: Hitchcock, Surrealism and Salvador Dali”.  This short goes in depth about how Hitchcock came to collaborate with Dali and the controversy involving producer Selznick.  The second feature, “Guilt By Association: Psychoanalyzing Spellbound” explores Spellbound’s relation to the practice of psychoanalysis.  The third feature, “Cinderella Story: Rhonda Fleming” is about, well, Rhonda Fleming I guess.  You also get another radio play starring Joseph Cotten and an audio interview with Hitchcock conducted by Peter Bogdanovich.  There is also the expected trailer.