DVDFile

Fox / 118 Minutes / 1945 / Unrated / Street Date: January 24, 2012

In Spellbound, a psychiatric institution is about to receive a new chief of staff in the form of the distinguished Dr. Anthony Edwards (Gregory Peck). His arrival is highly anticipated, but the staff, including the confident Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is caught off guard when Edwards turns out to be much younger than they had expected. They had good reason to be surprised, as the mystery of Dr. Edwards is about to unravel...

Spellbound is not one of my favorite Hitchcock films. Sure, the film has its moments, with two virtuoso Hitch suspense sequences (the letter on the floor and hotel detective segments) and dream sequences that are refreshingly odd. The last few minutes of the film are also incredibly well written and executed. But Spellbound suffers from several flaws, most due to some clumsy scripting and Hitch's well-known love for shooting on soundstages instead of real-life locales.

How did the burned hand go unnoticed all that time? What about that laughable skiing scene, where Bergman and Peck were obviously being filmed in a studio? It seems like no effort at all was made in creating the illusion that they were skiing (but don't blame Hitch too much, as the extras indicate that Hitchcock was forced to use budget-minded solutions due to Selznick's penny pinching).

The worst aspect of the film is the romance between Bergman and Peck. Peck has a cardboard personality, and Bergman's purportedly intelligent character is presented as a dopey girl who has fallen for a pretty face. Hitchcock sets up and hammers home the "science vs. love" idea, which quickly gets old. Bergman's performance is a perfect match for the score: weepy and melodramatic. Spellbound is not a bad film by any means, just not one of Hitch's best.