WALLA Spring, 2015 Hitchcock in the Forties Marshall Deutelbaum, Coordinator and Presenter

Spellbound (Selznick International Pictures, 1945) 111 min.

Ingrid Bergman (Dr. Constance Petersen); Gregory Peck (John Ballantine); Michael Chekhov (Dr. Alexander Brulov); Leo G. Carroll (Dr. Murchison); Rhonda Fleming (Mary Carmichael); John Emery (Dr. Fleurot); Norman Lloyd (Mr. Garmes).

In the source novel for Spellbound, Francis Breeding’s, The House of Dr. Edwardes, (1927) a young female intern discovers that the mental asylum in which she has begun to work is the home for a coven of devil worshipers led by the head physician, Dr. Murchison. Ben Hecht suggested changing the novel’s satanic plot to a murder mystery solved by psychoanalysis. In psychoanalysis himself at the time, Hecht consulted a number of psychiatrists about the plot. Though less than enthusiastic about the project, David O. Selznick assigned his own psychoanalyst, Dr. May Romm, as an advisor to the production. Not surprisingly, the plot turned out to hinge on unraveling the meaning of John Ballantine’s dream as well as the reason for his paralyzed reaction to parallel lines and whiteness.

Selznick contracted with Salvador Dali for the design of the dream sequence. While some of Dali’s designs appear in the film—the gambling house with its eye-filled curtain, the sequence atop the roof, and Ballantine being chased by the shadow of a bird—two sequences were shot and discarded. One involved a series of grand pianos suspended just above the heads of static couples caught in the midst of dancing; the other envisioned Ingrid Bergman encased in a plaster gown that would crack to reveal her in a flowing Grecian gown covered by ants. The production still at the left shows her in costume waiting for the scene to be filmed. The plaster casts to be used in the sequence can be seen in the background. Below, Dali’s initial design

for the gambling house curtain. For surrealists like Dali, the open eye signified openness to the reality of dreams. To aurally match the mysteriousness of Ballantine’s phobias, Miklos Rozsa’s score for the film employs the eerie-sounding Theremin whenever Ballantine encounters parallel lines or bright white light.

Ingrid Bergman began her Hollywood career in Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939) produced by David O. Selznick, who signed her to a seven year contract. Having no plans for her, he loaned her out for a number of productions including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (MGM, 1941), Casablanca (Warner Bros., 1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (Paramount, 1943), and Gaslight (Columbia, 1944), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She was so much in demand that two other films, Saratoga Trunk (Warner Bros., 1945) and The Bells of St. Mary’s (RKO, 1945) were playing theaters at the same time as Spellbound. Her next picture was Hitchcock’s Notorious (RKO, 1946) was another loan-out.

On the basis of his Broadway performance in “Morning Star”, Selznick gave Gregory Peck a screen test in 1942 and turned him down. Peck gained notice, however, playing a Russian partisan in Days of Glory (RKO, 1944) and a priest in The Keys of the Kingdom (Twentieth Century Fox, 1944). Shrewdly, he decided not to sign a long-term contract with any studio. He played opposite Greer Garson in The Valley of Decision (MGM, 1945) before making Spellbound. A year later he again worked for Selznick making Duel in the Sun (Selznick Studio, 1946).

Smoking a cigarette and carrying a musical instrument, Hitchcock makes his appearance emerging from an elevator in the Empire State Hotel lobby shortly after Constance arrives there.