The Critics' Corner on SPELLBOUND

"Hitchcock's deft timing and sharp, imaginative camera work raise Spellbound well above the routine of Hollywood thrillers." -- Time.

"Compelling performances by Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck, the work is a masterful psychiatric thriller." -- The New York Herald Tribune.

"...Hitchcock embellishes it with characteristically brilliant twists, like the infinite variety of parallel lines which etch their way through Peck's mind. The imagery is sometimes overblown (doors open magically down a corridor when Peck and Bergman kiss), and the dream sequences designed by Dali are exactly what you'd expect; but there are moments, especially towards the end, when the images and ideas really work together." - Helen MacKintosh, TimeOut.

"Both [Bergman and Peck] are ornamentally effective looking - so much so that in spite of some bits of pretty good playing, it was impossible to disidentify them from illustrations in a slick-paper magazine serial and more hopeless still to identify them with living people." - James Agee, The Nation.

"...with all the obvious ingredients for success, Spellbound is a disaster. It was fitting that the actress who was once described as a "fine, strong, cow-country maiden" should be cast as a good, solid analyst, dispensing cures with the wholesome simplicity of a mother adding wheat germ to the family diet, but Bergman's apple-cheeked sincerity has rarely been as out of place as in this confection whipped up by jaded chefs." - Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies.

"This psychological thriller in the typical somber Hollywood thriller style of the Forties is persuasively directed by Hitchcock, who nevertheless amused himself with some bits of gratuitous technical virtuosity - the rather mediocre Salvador Dali dream sequence and the audience identification in the "first-person" suicide of the murderer at the end." - Georges Sadoul, Dictionary of Films.

Awards & Honors

The New York Film Critics Circle named Ingrid Bergman Best Actress for her performances in Spellbound and The Bells of St. Mary's. When the year's Oscar® nominations were announced, Bergman had been nominated for the latter film. She would lose to Joan Crawford in Mildred Pierce.

Spellbound was nominated for six Academy Awards®: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Michael Chekhov), Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects and Best Score. It won in the latter category for Miklos Rozsa's combination of lush romantic themes with a pioneering use of the electronic instrument the theremin.

Compiled by Frank Miller & Jeff Stafford