Spellbound Review
Behind a veil of psychoanalytic babble lies a simple tale of murder in Alfred_Hitchcock's popular thriller Spellbound. During the WWII era in which the film was released, it was heralded for its intellectual use of Freudian theories to solve a murder. In retrospect, however, the film reveals psychoanalytic ideas that are simplistic and obsolete to the point of becoming comical. In spite of this, Hitchcock's tremendous ability to create suspense remains a timeless one and the film's thriller elements, combined with a series of outstanding visuals, bring Spellbound within a notch of the director's best works. The psychological elements allowed Hitchcock to be creative visually and he went to the best, hiring artist Salvador_Dali to design a series of incredibly eerie dream sequences. Sadly, only a few of Dali's wonderful creations made the final cut while the others were either lost or destroyed. Hitchcock often spoke of one particularly fantastic sequence in which a statue cracked and fell apart, revealing star Ingrid_Bergman beneath it. Gregory_Peck is a strong male lead playing the protagonist with a confused and cloudy mind, but Bergman steals the show as his love-struck shrink, a woman described by one of her peers as "a human glacier." Spellbound was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor (Michael_Chekhov), but went on to win for Miklos_Rozsa's chilling score. Hitchcock's cameo arrives at the film's 38-minute mark, when the director can be seen exiting an elevator. Patrick Legare, Rovi
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