Spellbound
Dr. Murchison is about to retire, thus leaving his place as Director at Green Manors, a psychological disease institution. Dr. Edwardes, a famous psychiatrist, has been designed to be the new director.The newly arrived Dr. Edwardes quickly falls in love with Dr. Constance Petersen, who will immediately notice his strange behaviour. Short time later, she will arrive to the conclusion that "Dr. Edwardes" is not the person he claims to be so, that the police will accuse him of having murdered Dr. Edwardes in order to supplant his personality.
Together with Constance, and with aid from Dr. Brulov, a psychologist friend of her, the supposed Dr. Edwardes will discover his real identity: his name is John Ballantine and he's affected by a strong culpability complex since he accidentally provoked his brother's death, while they were playing together.
Because of him witnessing Dr. Edwardes' murder by Murchison (Murchison accused Edwardes of stealing his job as director), Ballantine got a shock who made him enter a state of amnesia. He then assumed Dr. Edwardes' personality due to him not being capable of accepting his death.
As Ballantine finally gets rid from his culpability complex, he and Constance start life anew.
Hitchcock's 'Spellbound' was nominated for a Best Director's Academy Award, though as happened with 'Rebecca' and 'Lifeboat' (and as unfortunately would happen with 'Rear Window' and 'Psycho') he didn't finally get it.
This movie is held for one of the best ever filmed by Hitchcock; it's "pure Hitchock's style" if we consider the movie's argument, which shows up a clear psychological background. Although, there are some elements which introduce variations from the normal way Alfred built up his movies, for instance the fact that the viewer does not know the identity of Murchison's murderer until the film's final stage.
However, we could say that's just a final "coup de grace"; this time, suspense is undoubtely based upon Gregory Peck's evolution from Dr. Edwardes to John Ballantine, thus configuring Hitchcock's tradition to build up his films as real psychological studies. The love story established between Ballantine and Constance should be regarded merely as an imposition from the producer to make the film more attractive to the public's general opinion (just as happened with 'Rebecca' 5 years ago), but rather irrelevant if we consider the whole film's development.
At the same time, if we look at the argumental plot more accurately, we'll notice that it was designed by Hitchcock in order to make Dr. Murchison manipulate all characters on the film, including Ballantine and Petersen. Murchison will rely on Ballantine's weak point, his culpability complex, to hide Edwardes' murder; regarding all others, Murchison will make them act as he desires in the same way he manipulates the normal pacients until the whole plot is uncovered. But what's important is the fact, that Hitchcock has finally managed to reach his main objective: to manipulate the viewer in the same way Murchison has manipulated all others.
