Spellbound

This is a wonky movie. Very good, but wonky. Spellbound concerns Dr. Constance Petersen (Ingrid Bergman), a buttoned-up, all-business psychoanalyst at an asylum in Vermont. The head of the asylum is retiring, and she discovers that the replacement (Gregory Peck) is actually an amnesiac who thinks he may have killed the intended replacement Dr. Anthony Edwardes, and goes about masquerading as him. Love, psychoanalysis, and the police follow, as they try to unlock his memory to see if the real Edwardes is alive or not, unlock his memories, and stay one step ahead of the cops. It doesn't sound like a terrible complex movie, but believe me when I tell you that this movie packs more plot into its almost two hour run time than most. After the movie introduces her, the outgoing head of staff, establishes her character, meets the amnesiac, falls head over heels in love with him, uncovers his situation, gets the confession, and he runs off to keep her out of trouble, I checked the run time remaining. Only 35 minutes had elapsed. It's never boring, especially when you've got Bergman on screen and Hitchcock directing, but WOW, is this movie busy. Aside from your normal Hitchcock staples, Spellbound is a surprisingly feminist movie. This runs counter to all the stories about Hitchcock's treatment of many of his female leads, but it's true. Dr. Petersen is a woman in what at the time was a man's field. She is very good at her job, but is constantly having to fight to prove herself; one co-worker (a MUCH older man) hits on her and even forces a kiss on her, and she remains stoic and business-like. Even her mentor, who thinks she's the brightest pupil he's ever had, says right to her face that women make better therapists until they fall in love, and then they make good patients. Bergman's performance is shows remarkable duality; she is able to show the softer side, a woman in love who wants to support and help the man she loves, but at the same time, she shows her inner strength and resolve, focusing on her work and how it will help unlock the amnesiac's mind, all while the whole world thinks she's a silly goose. Bergman doesn't flip back and forth between the two sides, she weaves them together, making strength and vulnerability work hand in hand. There's a reason this lady won THREE Academy Awards for acting, because she's that damned good, and Spellbound is no different. This also gives the movie an interesting dynamic where, for all intents and purposes, Peck's amnesiac character is the "damsel in distress", quite literally passing out and having to be held and comforted by Dr. Petersen. It is a fascinating role reversal at a time when women, even when they were cast as plucky or spirited would still end up in need of rescue. Dr. Petersen never once does. She is the head of the spear in Spellbound, no ifs, ands, or buts. Sadly, all is not perfect in this movie, and the biggest fault is the miscasting of Gregory Peck as the amnesiac "John Brown". He is by no means bad, and I'm certainly not going to try, with a straight face, to say Gregory Peck isn't a good actor. He is, and he does the best he can. The problem is that he isn't the right man for the part. John Brown's amnesia is not only a problem, it terrifies him, to the point of screaming panic and passing out when he tries to confront his memories. Acting is a skill that can be taught, but presence and aura isn't, Some actors, like Samuel L. Jackson, can be used in just about any situation, and some aren't; you don't get Denise Richards to play astrophysicists, and you don't get George Clooney to play a bartender. Peck falls into the latter camp; he fits the stoic, steely-jawed hero very well, He fits the sophisticated, erudite, upper class kind of man. Vulnerable and afraid, however, is just not in his wheelhouse. He was trying, bless his heart, but I just never believed him as the man so scared of his memory, he fainted. The movie also suffers from the central mystery actually being a two'fer, and the two not being convincingly tied together. It is discovered John's amnesia is tied to a childhood trauma, not the murder of Dr. Edwardes ... except he did meet Edwardes, and Edwardes is murdered, so, why are his blocked memories from childhood erasing the memories tied to knowing Edwardes and the circumstances around his death, when the only thing they share is a downward sloping angle? Seriously, the trauma is tied to sliding down a banister, and he and Edwardes were skiing together. That's it, that's the only tie between the two. All that being said, this is still in Hitchcock's B-tier, and I'd dare say a movie that doesn't get as much mention as it should. The gender roles being reversed, the mystery of John's memories and why the color white and lines bug him, the twist with 20 minutes to go that totally up-ends the movie, Hitchcock at the top of his directing game, and especially and most of all, Ingrid Bergman, are more than enough reasons to recommend Spellbound. It isn't on the level of Vertigo (but what is?), but it's a more-than-good-enough deep cut in his filmography.