Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound Movie Review

Spellbound (1945) takes place at the Green Manor’s asylum, the head psychiatrist, Dr.Murchison is retiring and being replaced by Dr. Edwardes. When Dr. Edwardes arrives he immediately falls in love with Dr. Constance Peterson. As the film progresses, Dr. Constance Peterson realizes that Dr. Edwardes is an amnesiac imposter. The film is about their journey on figuring out the identity of the imposter as well as finding out what happened to the real Dr. Edwardes. The film was the first film to use Freud’s psychoanalytical or “the talking cure” theory to solve a mystery instead of using a typical detective. The film was recognized for this and was greatly influence by members of the production. Throughout the film we see a reoccurrence of Freud’s most important concepts of the mind such as the Id, the Ego, the Superego and the unconscious. Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945) was inspired by an original novel name “The House of Dr. Edwardes” by John Palmer and Hilary A. Saunders in 1927. “The House of Dr. Edwardes” revolves around the same setting as Spellbound, a new psychiatrist Dr. Constance Sedgwick arrives at an asylum and believes something is wrong with Dr. Edwardes, the Head Psychiatrist of the asylum after he took a leave of absence. Although …show more content…
As the master of suspense, Hitchcock, however was fascinated with how Freud’s psychoanalysis theory can reveal a twisted picture of reality. Most of the writing from Spellbound highlighted the basic principles of psychoanalysis and this was due to the screenplay writer Ben Hacht who was deeply interested in Freudian themes. In addition to Hacht, the producer David Selznick went into analysis in 1943. After his therapy was over he wanted to make a film on his experience in psychotherapy, this also added his psychotherapist May Romm to be a contributing writer and an advisor throughout the