Forgotten 50s: The Search For Bridey Murphy
Jul 8, 2017 1:36:25 GMT
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Post by mikef6 on Jul 8, 2017 1:36:25 GMT
The Search For Bridey Murphy / Noel Langley (1956). In 1952 a businessman in Pueblo, Colorado named Morey Bernstein developed a great interest in hypnosis. He became quite good at it and began hypnotizing his friends and neighbors. He hit paydirt after putting a family friend, housewife Virginia Tighe under and began to have her remember herself as a teenager, second grader, infant, and…he asked her to remember before her birth. Tighe began telling him she had lived as an Irish girl named Bridey Murphy who had been born in Cork in 1798. She related details about her life in early 19th century Ireland. Bernstein wrote a book about Bridey (same title as the movie) which became a Best Seller and turned into a national sensation. (Tighe was called “Ruth Simmons” in book and movie.)
After the main titles, we are shown a screen that assures us: “Ruth Simmons’ answers to Morey Bernstein’s questions in the hypnotic scenes are authentic excerpts from the tape recordings of the actual sessions.” Then Louis Hayward appears as Bernstein on a movie sound stage to address the camera and further assure us of the authenticity of what we are going to see. This semi-documentary approach continues, a good choice since it reduces the exploitation factor in this low-budget b&w quickie. They also brought in some capable and classy supporting players. Nancy Gates is Morey’s wife, Kenneth Tobey plays Ruth’s husband, and Richard Anderson is the local physician. But what really makes the film for me is Teresa Wright, almost at the end of her movie career, as Ruth Simmons. She has to become Bridey at all her ages and experience all her emotions while lying on a living room sofa with her eyes closed. She is imminently successful at this. There is a lot of blather and superficial dialog to slog through about reincarnation, the after-life, and Edgar Cayce, but the hypnotic scenes do hold the attention and the film surprises with a finale that is a real nail biter as Bernstein tries to regress Ruth to an even earlier life and then is unable to wake her up and return her consciousness to the present. Hayward gets a little overheated in this final scene but Wright nails it. The movie closes with Bernstein again talking directly to the audience with a disclaimer about making a case for anything – except the power of hypnosis. It ends with a sort of “kids, don’t try this at home” warning.
As you might guess, there was a lot of skeptical commentary at the time of the book. Details of Bridey Murphy’s life as stated under hypnosis did not check out. After a flurry of interest, book sales declined and the conversation sort of petered out. By the time the movie was released, audiences had moved on. The interest today (for me, at least) is in the performance of Teresa Wright, the semi-documentary style, and a look back at a real 1950s American curio.
After the main titles, we are shown a screen that assures us: “Ruth Simmons’ answers to Morey Bernstein’s questions in the hypnotic scenes are authentic excerpts from the tape recordings of the actual sessions.” Then Louis Hayward appears as Bernstein on a movie sound stage to address the camera and further assure us of the authenticity of what we are going to see. This semi-documentary approach continues, a good choice since it reduces the exploitation factor in this low-budget b&w quickie. They also brought in some capable and classy supporting players. Nancy Gates is Morey’s wife, Kenneth Tobey plays Ruth’s husband, and Richard Anderson is the local physician. But what really makes the film for me is Teresa Wright, almost at the end of her movie career, as Ruth Simmons. She has to become Bridey at all her ages and experience all her emotions while lying on a living room sofa with her eyes closed. She is imminently successful at this. There is a lot of blather and superficial dialog to slog through about reincarnation, the after-life, and Edgar Cayce, but the hypnotic scenes do hold the attention and the film surprises with a finale that is a real nail biter as Bernstein tries to regress Ruth to an even earlier life and then is unable to wake her up and return her consciousness to the present. Hayward gets a little overheated in this final scene but Wright nails it. The movie closes with Bernstein again talking directly to the audience with a disclaimer about making a case for anything – except the power of hypnosis. It ends with a sort of “kids, don’t try this at home” warning.
As you might guess, there was a lot of skeptical commentary at the time of the book. Details of Bridey Murphy’s life as stated under hypnosis did not check out. After a flurry of interest, book sales declined and the conversation sort of petered out. By the time the movie was released, audiences had moved on. The interest today (for me, at least) is in the performance of Teresa Wright, the semi-documentary style, and a look back at a real 1950s American curio.
