I had the opportunity to watch A Selznick International Picture, Spellbound a thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The movie is based on the novel authored by (Francis Beeding) John Palmer and Hilary A.Saunders.
The film starts with the words of Shakespeare “The fault – is not in our stars but in ourselves”.
Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck in the lead. The story, a new Director named Dr.Anthony Edwardes is appointed in Green Manors (a mental hospital) to replace Dr.Murchison who is forced to retire from. Dr.Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is the first to find out that Dr.Edwardes is not the actual Dr.Edwardes, while she was talking with him she draws a parallel line with a fork on a table cloth were the Doctor becomes restless and verifying his signature. Soon Dr.Edwardes (Gregory Peck) confides that he is not the real Doctor and he had killed him. But Dr.Petersen believes he is an innocent and also he is patient of guilt complex.
Then the Doctor drops a note to Dr.Petersen room and leaves to Empire State Hotel. She does as per the note and meets him, later he says that he is John Brown (JB) Dr.Petersen uses her psycho analytics method to unlock his memory and find who really he is.
For further help she takes JB to her mentor Dr.Brulov. They both analyses JB’s dream and his phobia of parallel lines. They find out that JB’s phobia of parallel lines is due to ski marks and further that he accidentally killed his brother who fell over the railings. A dream sequence which further unlocks who he is (JB John Ballantyne) and what happened to Dr.Anthony Edwardes. She takes him to the ski resort to re enact his dreams and this leads to the finding of Dr.Anthony Edwardes. But the police finds bullet on the body and arrests JB.
Dr.Petersen is sure that JB is innocent and further she analyze the dream and finds out that Dr.Murchison is the real murderer and finally JB and Dr.Petersen are united.
The film is simply superb. The acting of Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck is wonderful. The scene where Peck under the spell of parallel lines when he is preparing to shave, he slowly moves on with a razor in his hand to see Ingrid who is fast asleep and then he comes down the stairs to see that Dr.Brulov is still reading, I came to edge of the seat and was wondering will Peck kill the Doctor, No he is the hero of this movie, he will not do that, but he is under the spell something might happen. Nothing happened when the scene opens and further Dr.Brulov says he sedated Peck when he saw he had a razor in his hand. That scene was great, absolutely marvelous, here Hitchcock presence is felt he is the real master of suspense thriller.
During the climax when Dr.Murchison aims Ingrid when she boldly goes out of the office the gun turns to the camera and fires, the frame seemed different for me so I paused and find out that the frame is in colour but the movie is black and white a great creativity of Alfred Hitchcock.
Video from youtube. I am not the real uploader. The credit goes to the uploader behuppyforever.
Spellbound an enchanting movie.
