Spellbound

Alfred Hitchcock makes his customary quick cameo at 38:52-38:55 at the Empire Hotel lobby in New York City. He's exiting an elevator, smoking a cigarette.

You've fallen for a man who's an impostor, although his memories of before he cannot foster, a psychologist by trade, you're intent to move the shade, and prevent John Ballantyne from getting loster. He disappears, you track him down and run away, to your mentor's house you find a place to stay, as together you decrypt, in abstract dreams you find transcript, then make your way to mountains where folk ski and sleigh. It soon transpires that there's skulduggery at work, you're new loves actions, can't possibly be shirked, a slippery slope is more inclined, riven with twisting, turning lines, a casual comment fills with light, removes the dark.

Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck enchant throughout.

While I wouldn't include 'Spellbound' in my top five favourite Alfred Hitchcock movies it's still wonderfully entertaining. Of course it had dated badly in some ways, but not enough to spoil a modern viewer's enjoyment. Psychoanalysis was still quite a cinematic novelty at the time, but this means that we have to put up with an awkward opening sequence, complete with "explanations" on the screen, and a few pretty hokey moments throughout, but hey, I can live with that, and the amateurish filmed skiing scene. These few flaws, quite a rarity for Hitchcock, are still small potatoes. The legendary Salvador Dali designed dream sequence allegedly used very little of the great surrealists outlandish ideas, but even so it's striking and memorable. I also really enjoyed the inventive score by Miklos Rozsa, which utilized the eerie sound of the theremin, later used in the science fiction classic 'The Day The Earth Stood Still', and The Beach Boys psychedelic pop masterpiece 'Good Vibrations'. Now the best thing about 'Spellbound' and what really makes it into a wonderfully entertaining mystery/romance is Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. These two Golden Age superstars are both absolutely wonderful individually, but together they are magical, and one of THE great romantic couples in movie history. 'Spellbound' may not be Hitchcock's very best work, but I still highly recommended it. I can't see how anyone could not enjoy it.

Could this one be the most underrated of all Hitchcock's American movies/What?only 7.6?And however,you've got plenty of movies for the price of one!Come on ,wake up,and give this triumph its due!

1.It's a mystery movie:Peck suffers from amnesia,he may or may not be a criminal,only snatches of memory come back and he can't put them together.Some clues appear,the "lines" vision is the most famous.

2.It's a movie full of suspense;great scenes:the letter which Bergman tries to hide,the news papers at the railway station.

3.It's a chase movie:Bergman and Peck escape from the nursing home and search a shrink's colleague help.

4.It's a dreamlike movie:not only for the Dali's -too often unfairly dismissed-dream.Actually, the whole story is wrapped in a supernatural,eerie atmosphere.

5.It's a romantic story:the scenes outside the nursing home in country landscapes are wonderfully and lovingly filmed.

6.It's a movie of redemption:Bergman falls in love with her patient,and she's got to struggle -thanks Mister Freud- to help Peck to recover his

full memory.

7.It's a technically astounding movie,as in every Hitch movie:it features the shortest color scene (it's a black and white movie)in cinema.And I won't tell you when it appears,watch out.

8.It's a movie from the Master of suspense,and I trade you "a lapse of memory","shattered" and "the third day " for "Spellbound"!It deserves to be in the top 250!

"Spellbound" is a psychological thriller that tells the story of the new head of a mental asylum (Peck) who turns out to be an imposter. It's love at first sight for Constance (Bergman), a psychiatrist at the asylum, who falls for Anthony (Peck). However, his amnesia and dizzy spells reveal that he isn't the man he says he is, and he may have actually killed the man he's pretending to be.

As things begin to unravel and the situation becomes public knowledge, Anthony does a runner and Constance leaves the asylum to track him down. The pair reunites and Constance quests to prove the innocence of her new lover.

This movie has suspense written all over it. I'm a big fan of Hitchcock movies, especially the cinematography. I love it when the shot cuts to a new location or landscape - almost in complete silence. It gives a certain eerie 'what's going to happen here?' feel to it. Even in the opening titles with the bare tree branches rattling in the wind - you know you're in for a real treat with that spooky music.

At times Peck's character does come across a bit of wimp during his funny 'spells' where he flashes back to a time when he THINKS he may have committed a crime. You want him to pull himself together and snap out of it, yet it's part of the plot so all is forgiven.

When all the signs point to guilt Constance, in what we can only assume is her own delusion and blindness, refuses to believe that Anthony could ever do something so heinous. Her scepticism rings true towards the end when her psychiatric training comes in handy and we discover what really happened. She calls on the expertise of her former mentor, played by Michael Chekhov, who plays the part of the probing, and rather peculiar, psychoanalyst well.

Bergman and Peck make a terrific pairing. The love their characters have for each other is so convincing, you pray (and hope) that Anthony is innocent and it's all a misunderstanding. Bergman portrays Constance's desperation so well - she is desperate to prove Anthony is a good man despite his multiple admissions of guilt.