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| Ingrid
Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Edwardes (Gergory Peck):
There's nothing wrong with me that a nice, long kiss wouldn't cure.
Constance (Ingrid Bergman): I've never treated a guilt complex
that way before.
The new director of a mental institution
turns out to be a paranoid amnesiac with a troubled past.
 Best-known
for its Salvador Dalí-designed dream sequence, this slow-moving,
rather cumbersome thriller sought to introduce audiences to the
wonders of psychoanalysis. Ingrid Bergman was to be the first major
player in a long line of movie shrinks that was to follow, doing
what she can with a badly undernourished role. Gregory Peck, playing
the male lead, makes a fine start as the psychiatric patient impersonating
a suave new institute director. But as soon as he is found out,
his character takes a dramatic right turn, spending the rest of
the film passively yo-yoing back and forth between hopeless self-pity
and traumatized bewilderment. But in spite of its obvious structural
flaws, further aggravated by changes demanded by the Hays Office,
there is still plenty to admire here besides its celebrated, even
somewhat overrated dream section. Both staging and lighting are
as good as one would expect from Hitchcock in a Selznick-produced
major picture, and Miklos Rozsa's lush score, which make standout
use of the theremin, adds greatly to the overall atmostphere. |
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Like many early Hitchcock films, Spellbound
has entered the public domain, which means there are several bonestock
DVD releases available, both for Region 1 and Region 2. Apart from
being the only release with any notable extras, the Region 1 disc
from the Criterion Collection also boasts the finest video and audio
quality of all available versions. The Criterion Collection release
served as a basis for this review.
The fullscreen image is framed
at its original aspect ratio of approx. 1.33:1. The print has been
beautifully restored, boasting impressive contrast and stable, solid
blacks. Remaining damage to the source print is few and far between,
making this a stellar visual presentation.
The mono sound mix is rendered in a clean-sounding Dolby Digital
1.0 presentation, devoid of annoying hiss or major distortion.
Following last year's impressive
special editions of Rebecca and Notorious, this slightly
lesser entry in the Hitchcock canon receives an equally royal treatment
on this richly packed Special Edition release. Film scholar Marion
Keane, who previously appeared both on the Criterion editions of
Notorious and The 39 Steps, provides an analytical
audio commentary track that digs beneath the film's surface
of the picture's visual symbolism and rich layers of metaphor. It's
not a particularly easy listen, as Keane's style is scholarly and
dry to the point of occasional boredom, and there are several unnatural
rhythms and intonations to her speech that clearly indicate that she is
reading aloud rather than responding directly to what's happening on the
screen. Her dense and very wordy lecture is therefore at first difficult to
get into, were it not for the amount of
insight she does ultimately manage to add to the film with her well-prepared, highly
detailed theoretical analysis.
A regular inclusion on Criterion releases of Hitchcock pictures
of this era is the Lux Radio Theater broadcast, an hour-long radio
play adaptation with Joseph Cotten in the male lead role. It's
interesting more for historical purposes than for anything else,
as it's little more or less than a well-done encapsulation of the
movie's plot, including many of the picture's original dialogues.
An entire section deals with the screenplay development from
the 1927 novel The House of Dr. Edwardes to the final draft
that resulted in the actual film. An elaborate summary of the book,
written by a Selznick employee, is supplemented by multiple screenplay
drafts and a large volume of correspondence that provides the viewpoints
of the psychological community towards the film as well as illuminating
the production process. Other correspondence from this section includes
varying attempts at explaining psychology (psychoanalysis) in the
foreword, audience reaction letters, and the highly amusing comments
by representatives of the production code.
A Nightmare Ordered by Telephone is one of the DVD's true highlights:
a highly elaborate analysis of the Salvador Dalí-designed dream sequence, which
is by far the most memorable sequence in the film. The sequence of text screens
is illustrated with innumerable film clips, design sketches, production stills and
correspondence that paint a vivid picture of the dream sequence and its remarkable
production history. This section puts to rest the persistent rumor that the dream
sequence is a truncated version of a twenty-minute surreal extravaganza, but does
include about as much as one could wish for on the one scene that was deleted
from this part of the film.
Over a hundred stills are collected in the image gallery,
again made far more interesting than expected thanks to the illuminating
captions and text pages that accompany the behind-the-scenes pictures
and production stills. Another interesting inclusion deals with
composer's Miklos Rozsa's use of the futuristic musical instrument
called the Theremin, which would be used throughout the fifties
in nearly every science-fiction movie. A 30-minute audio interview
with Rozsa discusses both the theremin and the composer's general
involvement in the film. There's also a seven-minute audio segment
from The Fishko Files, providing a short summary of the instrument's
history and technique.
The theatrical trailer rounds out the extras on the disc
itself, but once again, the booklet accompanying this Criterion
release merits special mention, as it contains a selection of highly
informative essays on the film's production history and on possible
interpretations of the movie's strengths and weaknesses. Subtly
animated menu screens are gorgeously designed and complemented by
impeccably organized annotations.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
January 5, 2003
Click
here for IMDB info on Spellbound.
Click here
to return to the front page.
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