This is love! Complete...reckless...violent!
1945-11-08
$1.5M
111 min
When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, discovers Edwardes is actually an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and fears he may have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced his impostor is innocent of the man's murder, and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis.
This intriguing little crime/thriller from the great Alfred Hitchcock isn't half bad. It's a more unusual Hitch effort, but the story has plenty of twists and turns to keep interest. Ingrid plays a kindhearted psychologist who falls in love with the new doctor at the asylum where she's working, but he may not be all that he seems. I'm sorry, Ms. Bergman; it looks like you've fallen in love with a psycho.
When Leo G. Carroll ("Dr. Murchison") steps down as director of the "Green Manors" - a centre for psychoanalysis, he is replaced by Gregory Peck ("Dr. Edwardes") who immediately attracts the attention - romantic and professional - of Ingrid Bergman ("Dr. Petersen") who quickly discovers that he has quite a secret. Together they must work speedily to unravel a mystery of memory and murder before the authorities come to their own conclusions. This isn't my favourite Hitchcock thriller - Peck hasn't quite got the charisma or intensity the part required and though Bergman is beautiful; she is still just a little too stilted, unnatural even. The plot, however is complex and intriguing dealing with a traditional crime-noir subject in a far more cerebral manner. Miklós Rósza's Oscar winning score adds much of the menace to this and the pace smoulders nicely to a suitably thoughtful conclusion. I know Peck was David O. Selznick's golden boy at this point, but I cannot help but think he let's the thing down a bit; perhaps Hitch should have cast a more characterful lead? Great stuff, nonetheless though - certainly worth a watch.
