Review – Spellbound (1945)

If you’re going to make a did-he-or-didn’t-he murder mystery about a reality-challenged mental patient, this is the way to do it. The story is told not from the perspective of the suspect (Gregory Peck) but from the point of view of his doctor (Ingrid Bergman). Thus we don’t get stuck with two hours of rug-yanking what-is-reality nonsense. The all-too-infrequent dream sequences are clearly identified as such. Further, Salvador Dali designed them. Occasionally the plot takes an awkward twist, but for the most part this is the kind of expert storytelling one expects from Alfred Hitchcock. Worth seeing