Spellbound (1945)

Academy Awards, USA 1946

Won Oscar	Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture Miklós Rózsa
Nominated Oscar	Best Picture
	Best Actor in a Supporting Role Michael Chekhov
	Best Director Alfred Hitchcock
	Best Cinematography, Black-and-White George Barnes
	Best Effects, Special Effects Jack Cosgrove (photographic)

United Artists
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(Blu-ray, MGM/Fox)

Gregory Peck is hired to replace the retiring director of a mental hospital. Soon after he begins to have a mental breakdown, triggered whenever he sees pairs of vertical lines in patterns. Pretty psychologist Ingrid Bergman helps him with his condition, discovering along the way that he is not the same man that was supposedly hired. He admits to having amnesia and believes he may have killed the man and stolen his identity. He leaves the hospital in the middle of the night but tells her where he is going. They meet up at his hotel then travel to stay with her former mentor. They analyze a dream he had for clues to his past. They are able to deduce where the murder had occurred and travel there, triggering more memories in Peck. They are almost able to prove it was an accident until a bullet is discovered in the body. Peck is convicted of murder, but the dream provides one more vital clue. Another massively entertaining Hitchcock yarn. However, I wasn't always convinced by the psychoanalytical babble, nor the over-reliance on the dream for clues to advance the plot. The final scene is an unconvincing special effect involving what looks like a giant fake hand!