Spellbound (1945 film)

Spellbound
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by	Angus MacPhail Ben Hecht
Story by	Hilary Saint George Saunders Francis Beeding
Produced by	David O. Selznick
Starring	Ingrid Bergman Gregory Peck Michael Chekhov Leo G. Carroll Rhonda Fleming
Cinematography	George Barnes
Edited by	Hal C. Kern
Music by	Miklós Rózsa
Production companies	Selznick International Pictures Vanguard Films
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	December 28, 1945 (1945-12-28) (US)
Running time	111 minutes
Country	United States
Budget	US$1.5 million
Box office	US$6,387,000 (by 1947)

Spellbound is a 1945 American psychological thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It tells the story of the new head of a mental asylum who turns out not to be what he claims. The film stars Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov and Leo G. Carroll. It is an adaptation by Angus MacPhail and Ben Hecht of the novel The House of Dr. Edwardes (1927) by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer.

Plot

The Fault... is Not in Our Stars,
But in Ourselves...

— William Shakespeare

The film opens with Shakespeare's proverb, and words on the screen announcing that its purpose is to highlight the virtues of psychoanalysis in banishing mental illness and restoring reason.

Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman) is a psychoanalyst at Green Manors, a mental hospital in Vermont, and is perceived by the other (male) doctors as detached and emotionless. Another one of the doctors tries to kiss her to no effect. The director of the hospital, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll), is being forced into retirement, shortly after returning from an absence due to nervous exhaustion. His replacement is the much younger Dr. Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck).

Dr. Petersen and others notice that there is something strange about Dr. Edwardes. He has a peculiar phobia about seeing sets of parallel lines against a white background, first displayed after seeing a diagram drawn with the tines of a fork on a tablecloth. Dr. Petersen soon realizes, by comparing handwriting, that this man is an impostor. He confides to her that he killed Dr. Edwardes and took his place. He suffers from massive amnesia and does not know who he is. Dr. Petersen believes that he is innocent and suffering from a guilt complex.

'Dr. Edwardes' disappears during the night, having left a note for Dr. Petersen saying that he is going to the Empire State Hotel in New York City. At the same time, it becomes public knowledge that 'Dr. Edwardes' is an impostor, and that the real Dr. Edwardes is missing and may have been murdered.

Dr. Petersen goes to the Empire State Hotel to try to track him down. Finding him, she starts to use her psychoanalytic training to unlock his amnesia to find out what had really happened. Pursued by the police, Dr. Petersen and the impostor (who now calls himself 'John Brown') travel by train to Rochester, New York to meet Dr. Brulov (Michael Chekhov), who is Dr. Petersen's mentor and former teacher.

The two doctors analyze a dream that 'John Brown' had. The dream sequence (designed by Salvador Dalí) is full of psychoanalytic symbols—eyes, curtains, scissors, playing cards (some of them blank), a man with no face, a man falling off a building, a man hiding behind a chimney and dropping a wheel, and being pursued by large wings. They deduce that Brown and Edwardes had been on a ski trip together (the lines in white being ski tracks) and that Edwardes had somehow died there. Dr. Petersen and Brown go to the Gabriel Valley ski resort (the wings provide a clue) to reenact the event and unlock his repressed memories.

Near the bottom of the hill, Brown's memory suddenly returns. He recalls that there is a precipice in front of them, over which Edwardes had fallen to his death. He stops them just in time. He also remembers a traumatic event from his childhood—he slid down a hand rail with his brother at the bottom, accidentally knocking him onto sharp-pointed railings, killing him. This incident had caused him to develop amnesia and a generalized guilt complex. He also remembers that his real name is John Ballantyne. All is understood now, and Ballantyne is about to be exonerated, when it is discovered that Edwardes had a bullet in his body. Ballantyne is convicted of murder and sent to prison.

A heartbroken Dr. Petersen returns to her position at the hospital, where Dr. Murchison is once again the director. During a casual conversation with her, he lets slip that he had known Edwardes slightly, and didn't like him very much, contradicting his earlier claims. Now suspicious, Dr. Petersen reconsiders her notes from the dream and realizes that the 'wheel' was a revolver and that the man hiding behind the chimney and dropping the wheel was Dr. Murchison hiding behind a tree, shooting Edwardes, and dropping the gun. She confronts Murchison with this and he confesses, but says that he didn't drop the gun; he still has it. He pulls it out of his desk, threatening to kill her. She walks away, the gun still pointed at her, explaining that while the first murder was committed under the extenuating circumstances of Dr. Murchison's fragile mental state, her murder would certainly lead him to the electric chair. He allows her to leave, then turns the gun on himself. Dr. Petersen is then reunited with Ballantyne and they honeymoon together from the same Grand Central Station where they first tried to pursue the mystery of his psychosis.

Cast

• Ingrid Bergman as Dr. Constance Petersen
• Gregory Peck as Dr. Anthony Edwardes / John Ballantyne
• Michael Chekhov as Dr. Alexander 'Alex' Brulov, a teacher of Dr. Petersen
• Leo G. Carroll as Dr. Murchison, the head of Green Manors
• Rhonda Fleming as Mary Carmichael, a patient in Green Manors
• John Emery as Dr. Fleurot
• Steven Geray as Dr. Graff
• Paul Harvey as Dr. Hanish
• Donald Curtis as Harry, a staff of Green Manors
• Norman Lloyd as Mr. Garmes, a patient in Green Manors
• Bill Goodwin as House detective of Empire State Hotel
• Wallace Ford as Stranger in Empire State Hotel Lobby
• Art Baker as Det. Lt. Cooley
• Regis Toomey as Det. Sgt. Gillespie

Cameo

Hitchcock's cameo appearance is a signature occurrence in almost all of his films. In Spellbound, he can be seen coming out of an elevator at the Empire State Hotel, carrying a violin case and smoking a cigarette, about 43:15 minutes into the film. The trailer for Spellbound's original theatrical release in America made a great deal of fuss over this cameo, showing the footage twice and even freeze-framing Hitchcock's brief appearance while a breathless narrator informs us that this ordinary-looking man is the film's director.

Production

Spellbound caused major contention between Alfred Hitchcock and producer David O. Selznick. Hitchcock's contract with Selznick began in March 1939, but only resulted in three films: Rebecca (1940) and The Paradine Case (1947) being the other two. (Notorious was sold to RKO in mid-production.) Selznick wanted Hitchcock to make a movie based upon Selznick's own positive experience with psychoanalysis. Selznick even brought in his therapist, May Romm M.D., who was credited in the film as a technical adviser. Dr. Romm and Hitchcock clashed frequently.

Further contention was caused by the hiring of surrealist artist Salvador Dalí to conceive certain scenes in the film's key dream sequence. However, the sequence conceived and designed by Dalí and Hitchcock, once translated to film, proved to be too lengthy and too complicated, so the vast majority of what was filmed was cut from the film during editing. About two minutes of the dream sequence appear in the final film, but Ingrid Bergman said that the sequence had been almost 20 minutes long before it was cut by Selznick.

The cut footage apparently no longer exists, although some production stills have survived in the Selznick archives. Eventually Selznick hired William Cameron Menzies, who had worked on Gone With the Wind, to oversee the set designs and to direct the sequence. Hitchcock himself had very little to do with its actual filming.

Spellbound was filmed in black and white, except for two frames of bright red at the conclusion, when a gun is fired into the camera. This red detail was deleted in most 16mm and video formats, but was restored for the film's DVD release and airings on Turner Classic Movies.

Bergman and Peck's relationship

Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck were both married to others at the time of production — Bergman to Petter Aron Lindström and Peck to Greta Kukkonen— but they had a brief affair during filming. Their secret relationship became public knowledge when Peck confessed to Brad Darrach of People in an interview five years after Bergman's death: "All I can say is that I had a real love for her (Bergman), and I think that’s where I ought to stop…. I was young. She was young. We were involved for weeks in close and intense work."

Music

The film features an orchestral score by Miklós Rózsa notable for its pioneering use of the theremin, performed by Dr. Samuel Hoffmann. Selznick originally wanted Bernard Herrmann, but when Herrmann became unavailable, Rózsa was hired; he won the Academy Award for his score. Although Rózsa considered Spellbound to contain some of his best work, he said "Alfred Hitchcock didn't like the music — said it got in the way of his direction. I never saw him since." During film's protracted post-production, considerable disagreement arose about the music, exacerbated by a lack of communication between producer, director, and composer. Rózsa scored another film, The Lost Weekend, before Spellbound was released, and he again used the theremin in that score. This led to allegations that he had recycled music from Selznick's film in the Paramount production. Meanwhile, Selznick's assistant tampered with the Spellbound scoring by replacing some of Rózsa's material with earlier music by Franz Waxman and Roy Webb.

Intrada Records released a re-recording by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra of the film's complete score. The album also featured music not heard in the finished film.

Intrada Records album

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Main Title; Foreward"	3:13
2.	"Green Manors"	0:51
3.	"First Meeting"	2:11
4.	"The Picnic"	2:01
5.	"The Awakening; Love Scene; The Dressing Gown; The Imposter – Parts 1 & 2; The Cigarette Case"	16:49
6.	"The Letter"	0:30
7.	"The Empire Hotel"	1:22
8.	"The Burned Hand – Parts 1 & 2"	2:29
9.	"The Penn Station"	2:44
10.	"Railway Carriage"	1:16
11.	"Honeymoon at Brulov's; The White Coverlet; The Razor – Parts 1 & 2; Constance Is Afraid"	10:03
12.	"Constance and Brulov – Parts 1 & 2"	4:15
13.	"Gambling Dream; Mad Proprietors Dream; Roof-Top Dreams"	2:37
14.	"Dream Interpretation – Parts 1 & 2; The Decision"	6:10
15.	"Train to Gabriel Valley"	1:23
16.	"Ski Run; Mountain Lodge"	5:51
17.	"Defeat"	3:15
18.	"Contance's Discovery"	2:04
19.	"The Revolver"	3:05
20.	"The End"	0:59
21.	"End Title – Short"	0:24

Reception

After its release, it broke every record in London, in both famous theaters, Pavilion and Tivoli Strand, for a single day, week, month, holiday and Sundays.

It earned rentals of $4,975,000 in North America.

Spellbound won the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Michael Chekhov); Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Director; Best Effects, Special Effects; and Best Picture. Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck did not receive Academy Award nominations for the film, although they were nominated the same year for their performances in The Bells of St. Mary's and The Keys of the Kingdom, respectively. Bergman received the New York Film Critics' Circle Award for Best Actress for the film in 1945.

Adaptations

On two occasions, Spellbound was adapted for the radio program Lux Radio Theater, each time starring Joseph Cotten: the first on March 8, 1948, the second on January 25, 1951.

Legacy

Rózsa's score inspired Jerry Goldsmith to become a film composer.

See also

• Dissociative amnesia
• List of American films of 1945
• Mental illness in films
• List of fictional books from non-print media

External links

• Spellbound at IMDb
• Spellbound at the TCM Movie Database
• Spellbound at Rotten Tomatoes
• Spellbound Criterion Collection essay by Leonard Leff
• Spellbound Criterion Collection essay by Lesley Brill
• Spellbound Concerto by Miklós Rózsa on YouTube Music to the film arranged by Rózsa
• Spellbound on Lux Radio Theater: March 8, 1948
• Photos of Ingrid Bergman in Spellbound by Ned Scott
• Photos of Rhonda Fleming in Spellbound by Ned Scott