Post by petrolino on Jun 15, 2018 22:51:21 GMT
'Spellbound' is a mystery thriller based on the novel 'The House Of Dr. Edwardes' (1927) by Hilary Saint George Saunders and John Palmer. Doctor Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck) assumes his position at the head of the Green Manors Mental Hospital in Vermont. He's encouraged to take a trip to New York for covert psychoanalysis sessions by staff member Doctor Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman). Petersen suspects Edwardes may be withholding a deep secret from his past that could free him from his own debilitating complex and unlock a dark mystery in the asylum.
"I have done a great deal of research in emotional problems and love difficulties."
Gregory Peck & Ingrid Bergman
'Shake The Disease' - Depeche Mode
Alfred Hitchcock's divisive psychological thriller 'Spellbound' continues to perplex and entertain audiences almost 73 years on from its initial release. It deals directly with psychoanalysis and is shot very simply by Hitchcock who clouds his characters minds by constructing a series of visions, hallucinations and dreams. Like the mystery 'Notorious' (1946) that followed it, the film is deeply romanticised, with Ingrid Bergman smouldering heavily beneath Miklos Rozsa's overflowing music. Rozsa's interesting suite uses a theremin to aid discombobulation. Gregory Peck marks his first appearance for Hitchcock while grappling with hypnosis, keeping Cary Grant waiting in the wings.
"Alfred Hitchcock, destined to make sublime film thrillers, was born in London at the end of the Victorian era. He was the youngest child of an East End family whose father ran a poulterer’s and greengrocer’s business and whose mother came of Irish stock. The family was Catholic. Hitchcock loved his mother dearly and took after her in her quiet constancy. He grew up an independent youth given to attending films and plays on his own. He also read widely, including works by Dickens, Poe, Flaubert, Wilde, Chesterton, and Buchan. With training in electrical engineering and draughtsmanship acquired at night school while working for a cable company, at age 20 he joined the London studios of Famous Players-Lasky, already affiliated with Paramount Pictures. In these early years he worked under two top directors. The first was an American, George Fitzmaurice, noted for the holistic way he conceived a picture, including its sets and costumes. The other director was Graham Cutts. Cutts’ vitality was reflected in both the subject-matter of his films – often emphasising theatrical spectacle – and their mise en scène invoking a sadomasochism of “the look”. Cutts’ influence is obvious in the opening scenes of Hitchcock’s first feature, 'The Pleasure Garden' (1925), set in and around a London music hall. But in fact the film was shot in Germany. For a year both men were employed there as part of a deal by producer Michael Balcon of Gainsborough Pictures. Hitchcock seized the chance to observe F.W. Murnau on the set of 'The Last Laugh' (1924). Afterwards, he would describe Murnau’s film as an almost perfect example of “pure cinema” – visual storytelling employing a minimum of title-cards."
- Ken Mogg, Senses Of Cinema
- Ken Mogg, Senses Of Cinema
"Hitchcock's movies are unlike any other filmmaker's for reasons that have been celebrated and (over)analyzed for half-a-century. For our purposes we can state, without fear of contradiction, that his unique melding of wry humor, suspense, powerhouse performances and a healthy regard for adult relationships, i.e., sex, make Sir Alfred's films among the most entertaining and, at the same time, aesthetically rewarding in the history of the medium. From early gems like 'The 39 Steps and 'The Lady Vanishes' to later classics like 'Lifeboat', 'Spellbound', 'Rear Window', 'The Trouble With Harry', 'Psycho', 'The Birds' and so many others, Hitchcock's movies—even when quite genuinely disturbing—are at-once sophisticated and fun."
- Ben Cosgrove, Time Magazine
- Ben Cosgrove, Time Magazine
"December 1943 was a low point in the life of Alfred Hitchcock. “I was alone and I didn’t know what to do,” the director recalled. Despite the pleasure he took in scaring his audiences, Hitchcock himself was “a shuddering, shivering human being”, in Peter Ackroyd’s words. During this unhappy period, at the age of 44, he had returned home to England to discuss making propaganda shorts for the Ministry of Information. His wife and collaborator, Alma, on whom he depended, was not with him; he huddled alone in a hotel room, nervously listening to the bombs drop.In Hollywood, meanwhile, Hitchcock’s film, 'Lifeboat', which had taken twice as long as planned to film, was being savaged by the critics. Lifeboat was an anomalous project for the “Master of Suspense”, a largely static film about an ill-assorted group of American survivors who end up unwittingly sharing a boat with the Nazi officer who torpedoed their liner. The script, by John Steinbeck, was botched and needed extensive rewrites. It was an arduous shoot, with many of the cast getting ill from spending so much time drenched by the water tank on which the boat floated. The biggest star, Tallulah Bankhead, caught pneumonia. When it was finally released, at this critical moment of the war, some reviews condemned Hitchcock – unfairly – for not making the Nazi character seem vicious enough. One reviewer gave the movie “10 days to get out of town”.
“Yet,” writes Ackroyd, “Hitchcock did have work at hand.” That is an understatement. As well as creating those propaganda shorts – which ended up being shown in liberated France in 1944 – Hitchcock was in talks with the great Hollywood producer David Selznick about a new “psychological story”. This would end up as 'Spellbound' (1945) starring Gregory Peck as an amnesiac and Ingrid Bergman as the beautiful psychiatrist who unlocks his troubled mind. Although far from being Hitchcock’s finest psychodrama – it lacks the haunting depth of 'Vertigo' – 'Spellbound' was a huge hit and was nominated for seven Oscars. But without drawing breath, Hitchcock was on to his next project, again with Bergman. This was the thriller 'Notorious', about as perfect a film as he ever made, in which an American agent played by Cary Grant persuades Bergman’s character to marry a Nazi, even though he is really in love with her himself. 'Notorious' is soaringly romantic and impossibly tense, with possibly the best kiss in screen history. Once again, however, Hitchcock did not dwell on his achievement. He moved straight on to 'The Paradine Case', a courtroom drama. When he didn’t know what to do, what he did was work."
- Bee Wilson reviews the biography 'Alfred Hitchcock' (2015) by Peter Ackroyd
“Yet,” writes Ackroyd, “Hitchcock did have work at hand.” That is an understatement. As well as creating those propaganda shorts – which ended up being shown in liberated France in 1944 – Hitchcock was in talks with the great Hollywood producer David Selznick about a new “psychological story”. This would end up as 'Spellbound' (1945) starring Gregory Peck as an amnesiac and Ingrid Bergman as the beautiful psychiatrist who unlocks his troubled mind. Although far from being Hitchcock’s finest psychodrama – it lacks the haunting depth of 'Vertigo' – 'Spellbound' was a huge hit and was nominated for seven Oscars. But without drawing breath, Hitchcock was on to his next project, again with Bergman. This was the thriller 'Notorious', about as perfect a film as he ever made, in which an American agent played by Cary Grant persuades Bergman’s character to marry a Nazi, even though he is really in love with her himself. 'Notorious' is soaringly romantic and impossibly tense, with possibly the best kiss in screen history. Once again, however, Hitchcock did not dwell on his achievement. He moved straight on to 'The Paradine Case', a courtroom drama. When he didn’t know what to do, what he did was work."
- Bee Wilson reviews the biography 'Alfred Hitchcock' (2015) by Peter Ackroyd
"Though I soon became typecast in Hollywood as a gangster and hoodlum, I was originally a dancer, an Irish hoofer, trained in vaudeville tap dance. It was also during the 1920s that I came into contact with Cary Grant. His real name was Archibald Leach, and he was part of a team called Parker, Rand, and Leach. He wanted out, so I replaced him, and we were known as Parker, Rand, and Cagney."
- James Cagney, Andy Warhol's Interview
Alexandra Stepanoff
Rhonda Fleming & Ingrid Bergman
'Monster' - Lady Gaga & James Cagney
'Spellbound' can play out as simmering psychological warfare, intense sexual psychodrama or hokey melodrama, depending on your disposition, its surreal flights of fancy somewhat dimmed (I'd suggest) by excessive length. Hitchcock was acutely aware of early silent films made in France and Germany that delved recklessly inside the active mind. Some of suspense specialist Brian De Palma's playful trips into psychoanalysis stem from Hitchcock's cool exploration which has inspired unfolding dramas like Woody Allen's 'Another Woman' (1988), Charles Winkler's 'Disturbed' (1990), Kenneth Branagh's 'Dead Again' (1991), Phil Joanou's 'Final Analysis' (1992), Richard Rush' 'Color Of Night' (1994), David Koepp's 'Stir Of Echoes' (1999), Atom Egoyan's 'Where The Truth Lies' (2005) and David Cronenberg's 'A Dangerous Method' (2011). The finale includes a dazzling dash of red as a handgun is turned upon the audience.
"The relationship between cinema and psychoanalysis is as old as these two institutions themselves. Psychoanalysis was invented by Sigmund Freud at the end of the 19th century, at the same time that the first films were being created by filmmakers like the Lumiere brothers, George Méliès and Thomas Edison. Freud’s first book, On Aphasia, was published in the 1890s, a time period also considered by historians of cinema to be the inaugural decade of film. This decade saw the birth of the first film studio, Thomas Edison’s Black Maria, and the development of many advancements in camera technology and film technique. Some of the first film critics, such as Jean Epstein, immediately noticed that the new art form possessed a unique oneiric, dreamlike quality. The ethereal quality of films like Méliès’s “Trip to the Moon” and Hanns Heinz Ewers’ “Student of Prague” is hard to deny, as varying framerates and otherworldly subject matter combined to create a surreal experience for the viewer.
In 1900, Freud published his seminal work, The Interpretation of Dreams. In this book and in the subsequent abridged edition, On Dreams, Freud puts forth what became some of his most renowned ideas about the connections between dreams, latency, and desire. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud puts forward the thesis that dreams are a form of wish-fulfilment, presenting the dreamer the opportunity to live out fantasies denied to him or her in waking life. Many avant-garde art circles, notably the surrealists, were extremely influenced by this theory and its implications for art. Freud himself argued that his ideas on dreams had been understood by artists since time of the ancient Greeks. The spectator is invoked in the artwork by projecting of his or her own wishes and desires onto the screen, stage, or page. Artists such as Salvador Dalí and André Breton, who penned the Surrealist Manifesto, came to see their art as outward expressions of the unconscious. The latent content of paintings, films, and prose could be interpreted in a similar fashion to the way Freud interpreted dream imagery for the dreamer."
- Bryan Norton, Taste Of Cinema
In 1900, Freud published his seminal work, The Interpretation of Dreams. In this book and in the subsequent abridged edition, On Dreams, Freud puts forth what became some of his most renowned ideas about the connections between dreams, latency, and desire. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud puts forward the thesis that dreams are a form of wish-fulfilment, presenting the dreamer the opportunity to live out fantasies denied to him or her in waking life. Many avant-garde art circles, notably the surrealists, were extremely influenced by this theory and its implications for art. Freud himself argued that his ideas on dreams had been understood by artists since time of the ancient Greeks. The spectator is invoked in the artwork by projecting of his or her own wishes and desires onto the screen, stage, or page. Artists such as Salvador Dalí and André Breton, who penned the Surrealist Manifesto, came to see their art as outward expressions of the unconscious. The latent content of paintings, films, and prose could be interpreted in a similar fashion to the way Freud interpreted dream imagery for the dreamer."
- Bryan Norton, Taste Of Cinema
"Alfred Hitchcock had a life-long fear of the police. Rationally enough, his phobia stemmed from a childhood trauma, when he was sent by his father to the local station with a hand-written note asking the duty officer to lock him away for five minutes as punishment.
He had another life-long fear: watching his own films. "I’m frightened of my own movies. I never go to see them. I don’t know how people can bear to watch my movies," he was quoted as saying during an interview in 1963.
Oh. And another one. This time deeply irrational: "I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes… Have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I’ve never tasted it."
- Jenn Selby, 'Alfred Hitchcock Facts : 10 Not So Hidden Secrets About The Master Of Suspense'
He had another life-long fear: watching his own films. "I’m frightened of my own movies. I never go to see them. I don’t know how people can bear to watch my movies," he was quoted as saying during an interview in 1963.
Oh. And another one. This time deeply irrational: "I’m frightened of eggs, worse than frightened, they revolt me. That white round thing without any holes… Have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid? Blood is jolly, red. But egg yolk is yellow, revolting. I’ve never tasted it."
- Jenn Selby, 'Alfred Hitchcock Facts : 10 Not So Hidden Secrets About The Master Of Suspense'
"One of the many reasons the TCM Film Festival – which has taken place in Los Angeles in the spring for the past nine years – is my favorite festival to attend is that it affords people the opportunity to catch up on classics they may have missed, projected on the big screen, often in brand new restorations or, more enjoyably, on very old nitrate film prints, which are rare. If that classic you’ve never seen happens to be an Alfred Hitchcock movie, then you’re really in for a treat. This year’s allowed me to finally see his 1945 film 'Spellbound' and it might well be the most preposterous thing I’ve ever seen, in a way only Hitch could make it.
Almost all of Hitchcock’s movies play up suspense and melodrama for the purposes of making audiences uneasy, and a great many of his most famous films employ some sort of logical leap, a flight of fancy that allows the movie to work but doesn’t quite bear the scrutiny of real life. This is perfectly fine; it’s a narrative film and not a documentary. But with 'Spellbound', it’s possible the logical leaps only worked for the time, because a lot of the revelations and twists are based on a rudimentary understanding of psychological and medical practices that were new and sexy at the time. Like amnesia. Oooh, what’s “amnesia?!”
The movie is called 'Spellbound', but a more appropriate title might be 'Malpractice: The Movie', because it features psychiatrists acting astoundingly unprofessional–in ways that might actively harm their patients. Another apt title could be 'Well That Couldn’t Happen', because of how spectacularly far-fetched most of the narrative twists are. That said, there’s a great deal to admire about the movie, not least of which is the infamous Salvador Dali dream sequence. Also, for a movie that features the classic beauty of Ingrid Bergman, Hitchcock’s camera decides to take her subjective point of view for much of the proceedings, as she gazes at the handsome, career-threatening visage of Gregory Peck."
- Kyle Anderson, 'Hitchcock's Spellbound Is The Weirdest Movie Ever'
Almost all of Hitchcock’s movies play up suspense and melodrama for the purposes of making audiences uneasy, and a great many of his most famous films employ some sort of logical leap, a flight of fancy that allows the movie to work but doesn’t quite bear the scrutiny of real life. This is perfectly fine; it’s a narrative film and not a documentary. But with 'Spellbound', it’s possible the logical leaps only worked for the time, because a lot of the revelations and twists are based on a rudimentary understanding of psychological and medical practices that were new and sexy at the time. Like amnesia. Oooh, what’s “amnesia?!”
The movie is called 'Spellbound', but a more appropriate title might be 'Malpractice: The Movie', because it features psychiatrists acting astoundingly unprofessional–in ways that might actively harm their patients. Another apt title could be 'Well That Couldn’t Happen', because of how spectacularly far-fetched most of the narrative twists are. That said, there’s a great deal to admire about the movie, not least of which is the infamous Salvador Dali dream sequence. Also, for a movie that features the classic beauty of Ingrid Bergman, Hitchcock’s camera decides to take her subjective point of view for much of the proceedings, as she gazes at the handsome, career-threatening visage of Gregory Peck."
- Kyle Anderson, 'Hitchcock's Spellbound Is The Weirdest Movie Ever'
"'Spellbound' is a companion piece to 'Marnie', which I discussed back in July. Both films are about one person trying to psychoanalyze another in order to crack a big mystery — in 'Marnie', it was the title character’s aversion to sex; here, it’s who killed Dr. Edwardes. 'Spellbound' is interesting in its gender reversal. Constance is the detective/psychiatrist, with the imposter in the feminized role of patient/amnesiac. Seeing Peck, typically a commanding, authoritative actor, in such a passive, confused role is fascinating. That’s especially true when compared to Ingrid Bergman, who is as warm, determined, and empathetic as ever."
- Manish Mathur, Talk Film Society
- Manish Mathur, Talk Film Society
Alfred Hitchcock & Ingrid Bergman
Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
'(Inside The) Paradise Circus' - Massive Attack, Gui Baratto & Jean Cocteau
The cast of 'Spellbound' includes Michael Chekhov as artificial mind reader Doctor Alexander Brulov, Leo G. Carroll as distinguished medicine man Doctor Murchison, Normal Lloyd as test patient Mr. Garmes who's been emotionally crippled by a guilt complex, Rhonda Fleming as man-hating nymphomaniac Mary Carmichael who harbours violent fantasies, Bill Goodwin as a nosey security officer at the Empire State Hotel and Wallace Ford as a creepy lech from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
'Following the footsteps
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spell-bound ...'
Of a rag doll dance
We are entranced
Spell-bound ...'
- Siouxsie & The Banshees
