SPELLBOUND (1945) ** Who knows what terrors lurk in the heads of men? More ambitious in theory than execution, Alfred Hitchcock was at least ahead of the pack in conjuring forth the demons of the psychodrama. He's got all the typically glorious big faces and shots held where they shouldn't be and ambivalent looks and impressionistic injections, but the feeling you're left with is that you've been toyed with by a psychological dilettante. So that'll only be one hundred dollars please, instead of two. Gregory Peck isn't outshone too badly by Ingrid Bergman, which is a pleasant surprise, but not enough of one to give any clue of of why she's attracted to him in the first place, unless it's those other too-consciously libidinous shrinks she was previously stuck with. Psychological and screen dilettantes unite!: for it's a dream sequence courtesy of none other than Salvadore Dali, simultaneously one of the great artists and charlatans of the 20th century, and wasn't that an art in itself (can we please think of a different word for that latter use of "art"? He's somewhat subdued here, which is not Dali at his best but he's always interesting. Mikos Rozsa's score might be striking if it hadn't subsequently been lifted by every aliens-taking-over the earth film of the next decade, which leaves it funny instead.
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