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Spellbound - Criterion CollectionRating:
Release Date: 24 September, 2002 Retail Price: $39.95 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (14 total) |
Spellbound - Criterion Collection Reviews
The mind of a woman in love
Ingrid Bergman is the psychoanalyst who falls in love with Gregory Peck and tries to help him get to the bottom of a murder he's accused of but didn't commit. At one point Peck, tired of being analyzed, says that Freud and dreams are all hooey . . . and most of the pseudo-psycho doings here (fainting spells, instant interpretation of dream symbols, etc.) are just that - hooey. But fortunately there is more to it than that, and Hitchcock develops an interesting - and suspenseful - mystery.
Dali did the dream sequence, though Hitch might have been better off trying to make the ski run down the mountain more visually believable (even for 1945).
Bergman is interesting as the cold scientist who blossoms in love, though what she sees in Peck, who is a zombie the whole picture, is hard to imagine. This is the movie with the famous ending with a gun pointing at the camera and firing with blood-red color splattering the b&w screen for a split second. A classy Hitchcock production. Definitely worth a watch.
Will He Kiss Me Or Kill Me?
Ingrid Bergman is a psychoanalyst and, according to her male colleagues, a cold fish. This changes when Gregory Peck shows up as the new head of the psychiatric institution. The only problem is, Peck is not who he says he is. In fact, he doesn't even know who he really is. Bergman is determined to help him find out, but meanwhile, the man whose identity Peck has assumed is missing, perhaps murdered... The psychoanalysis in the film is pure hokum, and the plot's contrivances are perhaps a bit convenient. But Bergman and Peck are terrific, and the Dali dream sequence is as unusual a sight in a Hitchcock film as you could hope for.
The sound is in the original mono (no monkeying around with newly created stereo here). The print is in good, but not perfect condition. There is some damage in the form of faint vertical lines in the early goings, and some visible grain as well. The picture does improve, and when it is good, it is very, very good. The format is the original 1.33:1.
Here is where Criterion has really gone to town. It has often been said that DVDs at their best are film courses on a disc, and that is absolutely true here. Even the liner notes take the form of an extended booklet complete with two solid essays: "Hitchcock and Selznick" by Leonard Leff, and "The Hitchcock Romance" by Lesley Brill. The commentary is by Hitchcock scholar Marian Keane. Though she does sometimes describe what is happening on the screen a bit too much, for the most part her discussion is scholarly, clear, and packed with fascinating information and insights. James Bigwood provides a similarly informative, illustrated essay on the dream sequence with "A Nightmare Ordered by Telephone." And there's more: extensive production correspondence (right down to the letter from the Production Code demanding various screenplay alterations); a stills gallery divided into promotion, publicity, behind-the-scenes and set pictures; a whole set of features on the theremin, including an interview with composer Miklos Rozma, a list of there resources, and segment on the theremin from a radio program ("The Fishko Files); the theatrical trailer; and the 1948 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Spellbound, starring Joseph Cotten and Alida Valli, and including all the original ads. Could you possibly ask for more? My one gripe: the disc is very slow to respond to menu commands.
This isn't a perfect pristine transfer of Spellbound, however the abundant features more than make up for this. A must for Hitchcock fans.
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