Special Review: Spellbound
Spellbound ***1/2
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Ben Hecht, based on the novel The House of Dr. Edwardes, by John Palmer and Hilary St. George Sanders
Starring:
Ingrid Bergman as Dr. Constance Petersen
Gregory Peck as John Ballantine, aka Dr. Anthony Edwardes, 'J.B.', and John Brown
Michael Chekhov as Dr. Alexander 'Alex' Brulov
Leo G. Carroll as Dr. Murchison
Rhonda Fleming as Mary Carmichael
Art Baker as Det. Lt. Cooley
111 Minutes(NR-Nothing Objectionable)
-------------------------------------
It is odd for me to give such a special review to a film that is so old, but the screening that I had of the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock mystery "Spellbound" is worth giving a full review to. Before last week I had posted a bulletin on this site that said that I would be on vacation between the 5th and the 13th of July. Having returned a few hours ago, I can now tell the story. The first stop on my vacation was Louisville, KY, to attend the wedding of a family friend. One day, with the car broken down, my family was stranded in the middle of the city, and up the block from the hotel we were staying at was the Louisville Palace. The theatre was clearly very old, complete with a marquee and a box office window in the center of the two doors with a velvet red curtain. Playing at the theatre for the next few weeks were Alfred Hitchcock classics, and the only show that I could make was "Spellbound." I have never seen "Spellbound" before, and considered myself lucky because I had already seen many of the so called "classic Hitchcocks."
This is not merely a review of the movie, who was an intriguing and well acted mystery story, but of the theatre itself. The inside seemed unrestored, as if I was actually in the Golden Days of Cinema. One theatre, huge, fitting well over 1000 people-the theatre is also used for concerts, which helps with the massive size. There was a balcony, and great sculptures along the walls. The screen rests behind a stage with a red curtain which parts when the feature begins. The ceiling looks like a dark night, with statues of birds flying above you, and tiny pinpricks of light which are like stars. There was also a very cheap ticket price (only five dollars), and an old style concession stand with a limited menu and somewhere low prices (I got popcorn, candy, and a beverage, and it only cost eight dollars). I have seen some very nice auditoriums here in New York City, and it was as if they all took their best qualities and were combined to form this place nothing of which I have seen before. Some of the theatres in New York include:
The Village East Cinema-located on 12th Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan. This theatre used to be the Yiddish Theatre, and it shows from Theatre 1. If you are lucky enough to be in theatre 1, you are sitting on the balcony of the main stage, with the screen on the stage itself. The roof is majestic, complete with a chandelier. If you are on the lower levels there are smaller theatres, and you could tell that these were dressing rooms or other technical spots, which all came in handy for the conversion.
The Lincoln Center 12 and IMAX-If you are in the LOEWS AUD. at the Lincoln Center 12 and IMAX, located up on 67th street, you are inside a theatre with a similar structure to the Louisville Palace. There are two levels, the balcony and the lower portion, and the screen is gigantic. The walls have art on them, but it nowhere comes close to the perfection and detail at the Palace.
After a five minute overture of music from the film, the screen parted to show me "Spellbound," one of the first films ever to deal with the subject of psychoanalysis. Ingrid Bergman plays Dr. Constance Petersen, who ends up meeting Dr. Anthony Edwardes at the office where she works. The two fall in love, but she is troubled by his brief hypnotic spells. He admits to killing the real Dr. Edwardes, and also admits to not knowing who he is. The two of them go on the run while he is being pursued by the law, where she is determined to find out his actual identity. This is not the thriller that I expected it to be, but it is an interesting mystery story with some great sequences-particularly a climatic skiing sequence. There are also wonderful shots, including one through a drinking glass (where the man is drinking milk) and one from the point of view of someone holding a gun. For this Hitchcock I was more interested in the technical aspects than the story or plot twists-some of which I was able to predict early on. The music, which won an Academy Award, was also wonderful to listen to, and after the End Credit they played the music for a good five minutes as the audience exited.
While this was not a perfect reconstruction of a day at the movies during the 40's (there was a lack of newsreel, trailers, shorts, or even a B-Picture) the atmosphere alone gave me a pretty good idea of what it was like. My only quip, and this raises a question for my reader, is that I was under the impression that I was watching a DVD of the film and not a print of it. I had a few things that made me wonder this:
1) There was not a single reel marker.
2) There were no real scratches on the film, and the only ones that I could spot looked as if they were just on the picture forever.
3) And the curtain closed very fast at the end as if to hide some kind of FBI warning that are usually after the DVD movies.
If anybody could tell me any obvious clues that I could know if I watched a DVD or not, I would appreciate it.
I'll end by recommending the Louisville Palace, and if you live in Louisville, or plan on passing by there, a look see at the website which I will post at the bottom of this review, will give you heads-up on the films or music playing there in the upcoming months.
http://www.louisvillepalace.com/
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by Ben Hecht, based on the novel The House of Dr. Edwardes, by John Palmer and Hilary St. George Sanders
Starring:
Ingrid Bergman as Dr. Constance Petersen
Gregory Peck as John Ballantine, aka Dr. Anthony Edwardes, 'J.B.', and John Brown
Michael Chekhov as Dr. Alexander 'Alex' Brulov
Leo G. Carroll as Dr. Murchison
Rhonda Fleming as Mary Carmichael
Art Baker as Det. Lt. Cooley
111 Minutes(NR-Nothing Objectionable)
-------------------------------------
It is odd for me to give such a special review to a film that is so old, but the screening that I had of the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock mystery "Spellbound" is worth giving a full review to. Before last week I had posted a bulletin on this site that said that I would be on vacation between the 5th and the 13th of July. Having returned a few hours ago, I can now tell the story. The first stop on my vacation was Louisville, KY, to attend the wedding of a family friend. One day, with the car broken down, my family was stranded in the middle of the city, and up the block from the hotel we were staying at was the Louisville Palace. The theatre was clearly very old, complete with a marquee and a box office window in the center of the two doors with a velvet red curtain. Playing at the theatre for the next few weeks were Alfred Hitchcock classics, and the only show that I could make was "Spellbound." I have never seen "Spellbound" before, and considered myself lucky because I had already seen many of the so called "classic Hitchcocks."
This is not merely a review of the movie, who was an intriguing and well acted mystery story, but of the theatre itself. The inside seemed unrestored, as if I was actually in the Golden Days of Cinema. One theatre, huge, fitting well over 1000 people-the theatre is also used for concerts, which helps with the massive size. There was a balcony, and great sculptures along the walls. The screen rests behind a stage with a red curtain which parts when the feature begins. The ceiling looks like a dark night, with statues of birds flying above you, and tiny pinpricks of light which are like stars. There was also a very cheap ticket price (only five dollars), and an old style concession stand with a limited menu and somewhere low prices (I got popcorn, candy, and a beverage, and it only cost eight dollars). I have seen some very nice auditoriums here in New York City, and it was as if they all took their best qualities and were combined to form this place nothing of which I have seen before. Some of the theatres in New York include:
The Village East Cinema-located on 12th Street and 2nd Avenue in Manhattan. This theatre used to be the Yiddish Theatre, and it shows from Theatre 1. If you are lucky enough to be in theatre 1, you are sitting on the balcony of the main stage, with the screen on the stage itself. The roof is majestic, complete with a chandelier. If you are on the lower levels there are smaller theatres, and you could tell that these were dressing rooms or other technical spots, which all came in handy for the conversion.
The Lincoln Center 12 and IMAX-If you are in the LOEWS AUD. at the Lincoln Center 12 and IMAX, located up on 67th street, you are inside a theatre with a similar structure to the Louisville Palace. There are two levels, the balcony and the lower portion, and the screen is gigantic. The walls have art on them, but it nowhere comes close to the perfection and detail at the Palace.
After a five minute overture of music from the film, the screen parted to show me "Spellbound," one of the first films ever to deal with the subject of psychoanalysis. Ingrid Bergman plays Dr. Constance Petersen, who ends up meeting Dr. Anthony Edwardes at the office where she works. The two fall in love, but she is troubled by his brief hypnotic spells. He admits to killing the real Dr. Edwardes, and also admits to not knowing who he is. The two of them go on the run while he is being pursued by the law, where she is determined to find out his actual identity. This is not the thriller that I expected it to be, but it is an interesting mystery story with some great sequences-particularly a climatic skiing sequence. There are also wonderful shots, including one through a drinking glass (where the man is drinking milk) and one from the point of view of someone holding a gun. For this Hitchcock I was more interested in the technical aspects than the story or plot twists-some of which I was able to predict early on. The music, which won an Academy Award, was also wonderful to listen to, and after the End Credit they played the music for a good five minutes as the audience exited.
While this was not a perfect reconstruction of a day at the movies during the 40's (there was a lack of newsreel, trailers, shorts, or even a B-Picture) the atmosphere alone gave me a pretty good idea of what it was like. My only quip, and this raises a question for my reader, is that I was under the impression that I was watching a DVD of the film and not a print of it. I had a few things that made me wonder this:
1) There was not a single reel marker.
2) There were no real scratches on the film, and the only ones that I could spot looked as if they were just on the picture forever.
3) And the curtain closed very fast at the end as if to hide some kind of FBI warning that are usually after the DVD movies.
If anybody could tell me any obvious clues that I could know if I watched a DVD or not, I would appreciate it.
I'll end by recommending the Louisville Palace, and if you live in Louisville, or plan on passing by there, a look see at the website which I will post at the bottom of this review, will give you heads-up on the films or music playing there in the upcoming months.
http://www.louisvillepalace.com/
posted by Eric at
5:35 PM
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