Spellbound - Drama
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Year: 1945
Country: USA
Duration: 111 mins
Rating: PG
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck and Michael Chekhov
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"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 Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) is a psychoanalyst in a mental hospital and is perceived by the other (male) doctors as detached and emotionless. The director of the hospital, Dr. Murchison 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. Peterson notices 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 in an inappropriate reaction to seeing a diagram drawn with the tines of a fork on a tablecloth. Dr. Peterson soon realizes, by comparing handwriting, that this man is an impostor and not the real Dr. Edwardes. 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. Peterson believes that he is innocent and suffering from a guilt complex."