STRANGE… STRANGE… THEIR IRRESISTIBLE LOVE! DARK… DARK… THEIR INESCAPABLE FEARS!
Anthony Edwardes (Gregory Peck) arrives at a Vermont mental hospital as its new director; dr. Constance Peterson (Ingrid Bergman) falls in love with him, but he turns out to be an impostor… and maybe worse.
A great interest in Freudian psychoanalysis inspired this thriller where the romance between the two leads is a weak ingredient, taking all of Bergman and Peck’s star charisma to make us believe how swiftly and blindingly they fall in love.
But there’s tension as they find themselves on the run, trying to figure out if Anthony once committed murder. There’s also a few outstanding scenes, including a dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí.
1945-U.S. 111 min. B/W. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay: Ben Hecht, Angus MacPhail. Novel: Hilary Saint George Saunders, Francis Beeding (”The House of Dr. Edwardes”). Cinematography: George Barnes. Music: Miklos Rozsa. Cast: Ingrid Bergman (Constance Petersen), Gregory Peck (Anthony Edwardes), Michael Chekhov (Alex Brulov), Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, John Emery, Norman Lloyd.
Trivia: Joseph Cotten, Dorothy McGuire and Paul Lukas were considered for the leads; Greta Garbo was also considered for the part of Constance.
Oscar: Best Original Score.
Quote: “Women make the best psychoanalysts until they fall in love. After that they make the best patients.” (Chekhov)
Last word: “Dalí had some strange ideas; he wanted a statue to crack like a shell falling apart, with ants crawling all over it, and underneath, there would be Ingrid Bergman, covered by the ants! It just wasn’t possible. My idea was to shoot the Dalí dream scenes in the open air so that the whole thing, photographed in real sunshine, would be terribly sharp. I was very keen on that idea, but the producers were concerned about the expense. So we shot the dream in the studios.” (Hitchcock, interview with François Truffaut)
