Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, discovers Edwardes is actually an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and fears he may have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced his impostor is innocent of the man's murder, and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis.
Hitchcock's Spellbound is a landmark in blending psychoanalysis with thriller mechanics, and Salvador Dalí's dream sequence cinematography is genuinely exceptional and sui generis. The film's willingness to take Freudian theory seriously as a plot engine was startlingly original for 1945. However, the plot strains credibility in its later acts and the romantic chemistry occasionally overrides narrative logic. Ingrid Bergman is luminous but Gregory Peck is somewhat wooden in a demanding role. The resolution, relying heavily on a last-minute confession, deflates some of the carefully built tension. The Dalí dream sequence and Miklos Rozsa's theremin score cement its place as a one-of-a-kind artifact.